


It Comes and Goes

by SarahAnne10



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-01
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-01-21 11:50:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 33
Words: 48,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1549511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SarahAnne10/pseuds/SarahAnne10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brienne doesn't like pity parties, but sometimes her own bad luck really astounds her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Brienne lets the blond hair fall loose from the tight ponytail it’s been confined in all day. It falls just past her shoulders and she gathers it over her left shoulder to drag her fingers through it. She does this partly because she knows Margery would be disappointed in her if she arrived at the bar with hair looking like a rats nest. Mostly, though, she runs her fingers through the glossy tendrils and remembers what it was like to have hair of her own. 

When Brienne was little, she would sit at her mother’s vanity. She could just barely see her high forehead, broad nose, and bright blue eyes staring back at her in the mirror above all the beautiful glass bottles that decorated the table top. Even then, Brienne knew she was not pretty. She was not like the other girls with cute dimples and button noses. As her little legs dangled off of the chair in front of the vanity though, her mother would smile, sing a medley of old Beatles songs, and run her soft bristled brush through Brienne’s long blond hair. In those moments, Brienne didn’t need to feel like the prettiest or most popular girl because as she sat at the vanity and listened to her mother’s voice she felt like the most loved and precious little girl in all the world. 

Brienne continues to run her hands through the hair that sits over her left shoulder. It is real, human hair. If one didn’t know any better-and most didn’t- they’d even assume it was hers. It complements her complexion and her bright blue eye, but if you look hard enough-though nobody really did-you can see the outline of the wig as it clings to the bare scalp underneath. She isn't one to pity herself, at least not for too long. She learned early on that there is no point in doing so, it changed nothing about her situation. It didn’t erase her freckles, it didn’t stop the ridicule from boys like Jaime Lannister, and it couldn’t bring her mother back from the dead. So, no, Brienne is not in the habit of throwing herself pity parties. Sometimes though, like now as she continues to examine herself in the mirror, she wonders how she has the extraordinary luck to be ugly and suffer from acute myeloid leukemia.


	2. Chapter 2

It started when she was 12. Brienne and Galladon had been kicking a soccer ball around for hours. He was three years older, but her long legs and toned muscles made her just as good, if not better, than her brother. Though her normal pace had slowed recently, it was still a shock when Galladon was able to trip her up and send her crashing to the muddy ground below. Brienne picked herself up almost immediately, being careful to brush slightly at the bruise that had started to form on her right knee which had taken the brunt of the fall. It was tender at first, but as their game wore on she hardly noticed it.  


In fact, Brienne did not notice the bruise until a few days later. It had continued to grow in size, covering a good portion of her knee and started to become and ugly blue color. At first she ignored it, things always got worse before they got better, but when it continued to grow more irritating she rolled up her pant leg one night after supper and showed her father. She wasn’t sure what he could really do about a bruise. Didn’t you have to just wait them out? But he was her father and he had to be able to do something to help ease the pain she felt.  


In the end, all Selwyn could do for his daughter was convince her to see a doctor. The growth and the discoloration of the bruise instantly terrified Selwyn, and he knew that the only option to ease his own fears and her pain was convincing Brienne to go back to a place that she associated with the death of her mother. It was not an easy task, but he eventually prevailed. Though now, many years later, he sometimes wonders what would have happened if he had not been able to win Brienne over and drag her to the doctor when he did.  
~~~  


“There you are! Finally!” Margery called out to Brienne as she embraced her and lead her over to the bar. Brienne rolled her large blue eyes at her friend, but smiled and followed her.  


“I was just finishing up some homework.” Margery was finally able to elbow herself and Brienne to the crowded bar, but as Brienne reached it she instantly wish she had gone to find the table where Sansa would inevitably be sitting down at and sipping on a glass of wine. Instead, she was stuck with the angered glares of the other patrons that she and Margery had worked their way past, and was only rewarded by the sight of her older brother sitting on a bar stool, surrounded by a crowd of beautiful, dainty girls, and Jaimie Lannister.  


“Ignore them,” Margery’s tone was dismissive of the crowd gathered by the bar stools just to the right of them. Brienne was certain they hadn’t seen her yet, but she started to fidget, knowing that would only last. A woman of her size would not be hard to miss, and the second Jaime caught sight of her there would be no stopping the ridicule he would bombard her with. Her brother would try to curtail it and soften the blows as best he could, but she hated that even more than she hated the endless jabs from Jaimie. Not only was she ‘that ugly beast,’ she was also the girl who needed her brother to fight her battles for her.  


“I can ignore them all night long. It’s getting them to ignore that’s the problem.” Margery opened her mouth the reply, but before Margery could say anything Brienne heard Jaime Lannister’s voice come from directly behind her.  


“Hello, beautiful!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has been reading this story and leaving comments and kuddos! I'm thinking these chapters will get longer as the story progresses, but this was all I had time for this afternoon and wanted to get it out there. Hope you all are still enjoying it!


	3. Chapter 3

When Brienne was a young girl she used to follow her brother around the house and even though she knew it annoyed him, he would humor her. He let her join him when he had friends over, playing with his vast collection of Legos and even teaching her how to play his beloved soccer. Their relationship changed when Galladon entered high school, but he always made time to kick a soccer ball around with Brienne, teaching her all the cool moves he learned on the high school team.

During her childhood, Galladon was Brienne’s rock. He was the one who came to her room to comfort her when she had a bad dream. He was the one to assure her they would both be alright after their mother’s death. He was her biggest cheerleader at her games and in life. 

Brienne’s protector and best friend was suddenly lost to her when the doctor walked into the room she and her small family were sitting in and revealed her diagnosis. The second the doctor had uttered the words acute myeloid leukemia Brienne looked up to try and catch Galladon’s eyes. Her brother had hung his head though. He ran his hand through blond curls roughly then got up in a rush and left the room. He didn’t come back. Instead, Brienne tried to find comfort in her father’s hand, which had slipped into hers when the doctor walked in. 

Right now and in every moment like it, as she looks across the room at Galladon, who looked up at her as soon as Jaimie spoke, Brienne wonders what she did wrong. She thinks maybe he tried to be a better brother for a while after the diagnosis, but the cancer slowly ripped them apart. She’s learned to be okay with this, learned to stick up for herself and build a tough skin. As soon as Jaimie opened his mouth though, in the brief second that Galladon’s eyes caught hers, she prayed for her protector again. 

Instead of waiting for her failed knight to come to her rescue though, Brienne closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she looked over at Jaimie, who had made his way to her side. She gave him a tight, closed smile and answered him. 

“Hello, Jaime.” Brienne tried to turn away, hoping he wouldn’t press the conversation any further, knowing that it would only end in her temper flaring, Jaime laughing, and Galladon trying halfheartedly to placate her anger. 

“You know, in this lighting you’re not half bad.” Jamie smirks at her, clearly on the slippery slope between tipsy and drunk. Brienne opens her mouth, hoping something clever will come to her quickly. In that same moment she watches Galladon push away from the bar hesitantly, trying to decide if he should interfere. Before Brienne can come up with a quick reply, Galladon can make up his mind, or Jaime can press on with more insults, Margery snatches Brienne’s hand and drags her back through the crowd of drunken college kids. 

“Ignore him. You do look good though. How are you feeling?” Brienne can tell Margery is trying to keep her voice calm, attempting to make it sound as if she has just asked about the weather, or something equally as mundane and trivial. Margery is sly, but Brienne isn’t that stupid. Brienne wraps her jacket tighter around her body, feeling a chill tingle through her bones. 

“Tired. I was up late studying for that awful comparative politics exam.” Brienne answers and hopes Margery catches on to her change of subject. 

“Not what I meant.” Brienne simply turns to the bartender they had finally managed to track down and orders a glass of white wine. Margery orders her own drink as well, but turns right back around to pick up where she left off. “Bri, you passed out in the middle of the soccer field…” Margery lets her voice trail off, and Brienne can see Margery’s brown eyes dart up to her own in concern. She closes them and lets out a frustrated breath through her nose. 

“It was hot, and I hadn’t played in a while-“ 

“Please, just schedule an appointment. I’ll go with you and we don’t even have to tell Galladon. It’ll be our little secret. Promise.” Margery’s eyes grow wider as she explains this new plan to her. Brienne doesn’t want to tell her friend that she doesn’t even have to go to a doctor for him to tell her what she already knows. 

Brienne has felt the cancer within her for weeks now. After the amount of relapses she’s had over the course of her life, she knows exactly what it feels like. Knows the way her skin crawls with Goosebumps even during the hottest summer. She knows that the glass of wine she ordered will remain untouched because all she can focus on lately is the way she can literally feel the cancer dividing and conquering her body. Again. 

In truth, Brienne isn’t afraid of the diagnosis. The only thing that scares Brienne is knowing that as soon as she admits to Margery and Sansa, to Galladon, to her father what she’s known for a while now, is that they will convince her to change her mind about the treatment. They will look on her with their tear filled eyes, plead with her until their throats run dry, and they will convince her to live.


	4. Chapter 4

Galladon Tarth is without a doubt, Jaime Lannister’s best friend. He doesn’t like to get all emotional or choked up about it, but if you asked him he’d never deny it. When Jaime first meets Galladon’s little sister he’s almost shocked that the two are related. Galladon isn’t a bad looking man by any means, but compared to his beastly sister, he’s a god. Also, where Galladon has charm and grace, Brienne is only ever able to keep herself upright when she’s on the soccer field. In fact, if there are two redeeming qualities about Galladon’s little sister, it’s her large blue eyes and her talent with a soccer ball. Sometimes it baffles Jaime that she doesn’t play for the women’s soccer team at King’s Landing University. She would be a star for sure. 

Another puzzle that Jaime keeps trying to work out is the obviously awkward relationship between Galladon and his little sister. If anyone knows a thing or two about fucked up sibling relationships, it’s Jaime. One doesn’t fuck their twin sister for seven years and come out without knowing how to spot sibling tension. He doesn’t believe Galladon has been fucking Brienne-mostly because he doesn’t believe anyone would ever fuck Brienne-but there is something weird between the two. Mostly, he just ignores it because it’s much more fun to watch the beast blush with embarrassment every time he makes a joke at her expense. 

Sometimes though, when he isn’t feeling like being a dick, Jaime watches for Galladon’s reaction to his taunting. He knows when he’s gone too far, can see the danger flashing through Galladon’s blue eyes. If there is someone Jaime doesn’t want to provoke into a fight, it’s his best friend. If Brienne is tall, her brother is a giant. Jaime may be an asshole, and an impulsive one at that, but he’s not an idiot. 

He’s starting to wonder how far he can push the taunts and why Galladon lets it continue. Why did he even let start in the first place? Even they weren’t fucking, and he wasn’t in love with her, Jaime doesn’t believe he’d be able to stand by and let someone, let alone his best friend, make fun of Cersei. 

He doesn’t bring it up though, mostly because other than his little brother Tyrion, after last year’s fiasco with the Aery’s, his circle of friends has drastically dwindled. And even if it hadn’t, Galladon stuck by him through all of it, so really he counts himself as pretty lucky to still be able to call Galladon a friend. 

“Jaime.” Galladon narrowed his eyes and his voice took on a scolding tone when Jaime reinserted himself into the gaggle of people surrounding Galladon. Jaime merely smiled back at him. 

“What? Can’t I say hi?” Galladon closed his eyes and gently massaged the bridge of his nose. 

He shook his head slightly and replied, “Whatever.” 

~~~ 

Brienne hates hospitals. Obviously. It’s more than just the fact that every time she goes to one someone is usually dying, her mom, her friends, herself. It’s the false sense of security they lull you into. They make you believe that doctors can conquer the world with nothing more than a scalpel and a stethoscope. They were just playing God for a little bit though, and nothing at all like the real deal. After her first round of leukemia had been toughly fought, and eventually defeated, she thought she wanted to be a doctor one day. She had seen friends she made while she was in the hospital suffer, two had eventually been claimed by the cancer. Brienne partly blames herself for the loss, who lets themselves get close to people in the oncology ward of a hospital? But really, she can’t help but blame the doctors for filling them all with false hope for a future none of them ever had a chance at. 

It’s the faces of the friends she lost, and the ones who made it through, never to return, that flash through Brienne’s mind as she sits in the doctor’s office. Margery, who insisted on coming along with Brienne when she learned the doctor had finally phoned to let Brienne know her blood results were back from the lab, was sitting the chair to the right of Brienne. She was smiling and reassuring Brienne that this was all routine and it was really nothing at all. 

Brienne cringed a little on the inside as Margery continued with her words of nonsense. Brienne really should have put her poor friend out of her misery weeks ago, It was clear the girl was probably more frightened than Brienne herself. Instead, she merely smiled as she looked over at Margery and said “I’m sure you’re right Marg. Just a weak spell was all.” Margery reached over and squeezed Brienne’s hand. 

“Hello Miss Tarth.” The doctor greets as he walks into the office. He settles himself down in the chair behind the desk she and Margery sit in front of. It is a large, bulky, ostentatious piece of furniture and Brienne wonders how long this man has been messing around with fate in order to attain such a thing. “Brienne, is there anything I can get for you or your friend?” 

“No. Thank you.” Brienne answers, but still her eyes stay firmly trained on the desk. 

“Well, then I suppose we should just get right to it then?” 

“Please?” Brienne answers, her voice cracking just a little bit at the end, and she winces slightly. 

“I’m sure, after reviewing your chart, that you are probably already aware of what your blood samples revealed?” 

“Yes.” 

“Brienne, is there a parent or a family member you would like us to contact? Treatment should be started immediately, and wouldn’t you be more comfortable closer to our family with your regular doctor? One who knows your history?” Brienne continues to breathe slowly, and a buzzing starts up in her ears. “Brienne?” The doctor’s words break through the sharp buzzing sound, but his smooth, almost tender, voice still sounds like it’s coming from miles away. 

“Brienne?” Margery’s strained voice comes in much clearer and she lifts her eyes to meet the doctors. She looks at his silver hair, just starting to disappear and reveal a small shiny spot on the top of his head. He reminds of her father, with the laugh lines evident around his thin lips and his sparkling yes hidden behind large square glasses. It is this image, the one of her father that almost break her resolve. She takes a deep breath though and focuses on a spot just over his shoulder. Looking out at the sunshine and the cloudless blue sky outside, Brienne answers. 

“No. No treatment.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all to have been reading, leaving kuddos, and commenting! You are all so awesome :)


	5. Chapter 5

“Have you told your dad?” Brienne has kept to herself for the entire weekend, staying holed up in her dorm room, ignoring all calls and messages, even refusing to leave to meet up with Margery and Sansa in the student café for meals. She knew she couldn’t avoid the subject forever though, and Margery seemed to take it upon herself to remind Brienne of that. 

“Not yet.” 

“Bri!” There’s a warning tone to her voice, and Brienne knows that however much she might be irritated it by it, Margery should be exasperated by this fact. Truthfully, Brienne does feel ashamed for not having shared this information with her father as soon as the results came in; as soon as she could feel it dividing and multiplying. Her cheeks heat up and she starts to tell Margery that she is going to call him right after their lecture ends, but she’s interrupted by Jaime Lannister. 

“What’s got you all red in the face, Brienne? Couldn’t stop fantasizing about me again?” Brienne’s eyes narrow at his joke, but she can feel her cheeks heat up further and the red stain starts a path that travels down her neck. He laughs louder, seemingly satisfied with her reaction, and continues to his seat in the front row. 

“He’s a jerk, Brienne. Igno-“ 

“Ignore him, I know.” Brienne sighs and faces the front of the room as Professor Stark starts to bring their 20th century fiction class to order. Before she can really focus her attention on Ian McEwan’s Atonement though, Margery whispers over to her again. 

“Promise you’ll call?” Brienne turns to her friend, smiles and holds out her fist with her pinky finger extended. 

“Pinky promise.” Margery smiles and joins her own pinky with Brienne’s. 

~~~ 

They are only half way through the class when Brienne feels her nose start to run, and before she can rummage through her backpack for a tissue, there are splashes of blood covering her notebook. She leans down to her backpack to look for a tissue or napkin as she blocks her nose with her hand. She comes up empty handed, and the blood has started to trickle at an alarming rate, rushing past her fingers and dripping onto the floor. 

When Brienne looks up she realizes that she has caught the attention of many people in the classroom, including a puzzled looking Jaime Lannister. She starts to stand up. She needs to get to a bathroom, or the hospital. Probably the hospital. There they can stop the bleeding. She’s barely out of her seat, and she can hear Professor Stark asking her if she’s okay. It’s so far off though, and the room is spinning, just like the soccer field was two weeks ago. 

Margery calling out her name is the last thing she registers before she hits the hard ground and her world is black. 

~~~ 

“Are you sure you’ve checked every possibility?” 

“Mr. Tarth, I’m sure you are war that a relapse with this cancer is not uncommon.” 

“We’ve already been through a relapse. Where does it end?” Selwyn Tarth sits down in the chair beside his daughter and drags a hand down his tired face. Brienne has sat quietly by his side throughout the entire conversation, staring out the widow behind the doctor. 

“Mr. Tarth, with treatment, the odds of survi-“ ,p>“I don’t want the treatment.” Brienne’s voice is so quiet that he’s sure he it was just his mind playing tricks on him. Surely his daughter, the strongest little girl he’s ever known, would not back down from a fight. In fact, he’s certain that her unwillingness to back down from a challenge is what has kept her alive for so long, even when by all accounts she should be dead. She should have been dead after the first time; the second time was the most extraordinary miracle he’s ever witnessed. 

Selwyn looks over at his daughter, and she is staring right back at him. He can see her blue eyes pleading with him to agree. To let her have things her way; to let her die. He cannot fathom it though. He cannot even imagine having to look at his little girl as she gives into the monster inside of her, and know that there was a chance it could have been different, she could have been saved. The odds are against them no matter what, but with treatment, at least there’s a chance. 

“Brienne, I…” he trails off, trying to find the words to convince her, but before he can string them together she take his hands in hers. 

“I can’t do it anymore, dad. I’m tired of being poked and prodded with a hundred different needles every day. I’m sick of being sick. Please, just let it be.” Brienne is pleading with him, but he can’t let this go. 

“Brienne, I just…I can’t.” Brienne closes her eyes and slumps back into her chair with her arms crossed over her chest. She doesn’t speak to him the rest of the day.


	6. Chapter 6

“You’re not listening to me.” Brienne balls her hands into fists underneath the restaurant table, clenches them, and then releases them to try and calm herself. Her voice gets higher every time she has to say this exact line, and in the past hour she has had to repeat it at least six times. Her father just keeps going on, trying to convince her, and at some points almost bribing her, to go through with the treatment. Galladon sits quietly next to their father, only answering in monosyllabic words when Selwyn turns to him for support.  


He cannot force her to take the treatment, at nineteen years old Brienne is fully capable of making that decision for herself, and she has no intention of changing her mind. If there is one thing she inherited from her mother, it’s her stubborn streak. Though where her mother chose to use it to cling to life, Brienne uses it to seek her own destruction.  


“Brienne, please help me to understand why you won’t help yourself?” Her father’s eyes are flicking back and forth, searching for something in her own. For the first time, Brienne can see the lines around his eyes have deepened. The dark circles underneath his eyes have become permanent fixture on his face, and more lines have appeared on his forehead. Her father looks much older than his 55 years, and so utterly lost.  


“I don’t…I can’t…”Brienne squeezes her eyes shut, forcing the tears back and she clears her throat and swallows the lump that has begun to form in her throat. Then, Galladon speaks,  


“Brienne?” He looks up at her with blue eyes that match her own, and he is looking at her looing just as lost as he father, but the tears sparkling in his eyes cause the ones she has been trying to choke down resurface and spill.  


“I’m just so tired.” That is all she can muster before she covers her mouth with her had and hastily excuses herself from the table. The cool fall air meets her in a rush as she steps out of the restaurant and leans against the rough brick wall. She tilts her head back and closes her eyes, and takes a few deep breaths. When she finally calms down she turns to go back inside, but the shame hits her and she can’t even bring herself to open the door, let alone rejoin he family. She does not cry, does not lose control. Instead, she takes a walk.  


Brienne doesn’t get too far, before she is huffing and puffing and has to sit down to rest. She sits down on a bench outside of the King’s Landing University Library and lets her breathing return to normal. She can feel another lump start to work its ways up her throat as she remembers the hopeless look her father gave her. She leans forward and rests her arms on her thighs, letting her head droop down and her thick blond braid fall over her shoulder. Before she can let the tears sip out again, she hears someone approach the bench and sit down beside her.  


“So, about yesterday.” For the first time since she’s met him, Jaime’s voice is devoid of all sarcasm and mockery.  
~~~  


Galladon wonders what happens when you lose a sister. If you have one and she dies, she’s no longer there, but you are, does that mean you no longer have a sister. When somebody asks you if you have any siblings, how do you answer that question when the other half is no longer there?  


This question has haunted Galladon since he was fifteen years old. Another question that has haunted Galladon: why not him? Why wasn’t he given the same amount of love and attention as Brienne? Why wasn’t his bone marrow a match? Why wasn’t he the one with cancer?  


He knows he pushes her away, and at first it was unintentional. He was just so sick of people becoming past tense in his life and his sister, his best friend, was the last straw. When Jaimie asks, though he’s not 

quite sure why Jaime is always so curious about Galladon’s relationship with Brienne, he blames it on the fact that Brienne always took precedence in their household. He’s never given any specifics. He knows Brienne would never forgive him if he let the truth about her condition slip to anyone, especially someone like Jaimie. He may try hard to distance himself from her, but Galladon wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he let her down again.  


He’s lying in bed after he and his father parted ways outside of the restaurant. He had promised to keep a better on his sister and to convince her to go through another bout of chemo. He wants to do these things for his father, for himself, and for Brienne. She is stubborn though, and when he thinks about it, she has good reasons for not wanting it. Who wants to live a life endlessly hooked up to machines, being pocked by needles every day, loosing the hair that is just starting to grow back after the last time? It isn’t much a life, and he should know, he’s watched his sister go through it twice in the last seven years.  


He knows he can’t convince her. In the darkness of his small bedroom, Galladon Tarth, 22 year old law student, former captain of the number one college soccer team in the country starts to sob because he may be all of those accomplishments, but he still Brienne’s older brother, and the next time somebody asks him if he has any siblings, he won’t really know how to answer.


	7. Chapter 7

Jaime was in a hurry when he left the university’s library. Cersei has been texting him all night and it was hard to concentrate on anything when his twin sister was sending him such naughty things. By the tenth text he couldn’t take it any longer. She had finally let it slip that Robert, her live-in boy to would be out of town for the remainder of the week, and how was she expected to sleep alone n that big bed of theirs? With that, Jaime had slammed his history book shut and walked out of the building as fast as he could. 

It had been a long while since he and Cersei had been able to be together, and he was just fantasizing about how they could spend the weekend shut up in her apartment without any interruptions. They could make love in every surface of the house, he could make her moan until she had no idea who Robert Barartheon was. Just as he was beginning to smirk at the idea he spotted the big giant freak herself. 

As soon as he thought of her as the freak though, he envisioned her falling to the ground in the middle of class with blood sill draining from her nose and staining her blouse. If that memory wasn’t enough to make him feel ashamed of himself and cringe with guilt, he had a flash of Galladon’s face when Jaime told him what happened. It was the first time he had ever seen his best friend cry. He knows that something is seriously wrong with his best friend’s little sister, and he feels a little guilty that he may have been a bit of an ass to her. In his defense she shouldn’t make it so easy. 

He wanted to walk on by. Cersei was waiting for him, probably already naked. He closed his eyes in frustration though because he could tell that Brienne was upset. He sat down beside her and took a deep breath before talking. He wasn’t sure what he could do or say to help her, but there was no point in beating around the bush either. So, he got right down to it, and now Brienne is staring at him with those big blue eyes that sparkle with unshed tears and his heart twists because this isn’t right. He is fighting the odd urge to wipe her tears away and take her into his arms. Anything to make the tears stop really. It’s freaking him the fuck out. Then, she finally speaks. 

“What do you want, Jaime?” She swipes at the tears herself but continues to glare at him. 

“Are you really just going to pretend like the other day didn’t happen?” 

“You’re suddenly very interested in someone you claim to be disgusted by.” Brienne is so quick with her uncharacteristic witty response that all Jaime can do for is stare at her with his mouth hanging open, trying to find words. Her wide blue eyes are still locked onto his green ones and he cannot tear them away. He has no right to be digging into her business and Cersei is waiting for him, but for the life of him, he cannot make himself take his eyes off of hers. 

“I’m interested because…well shit you passed out in the middle of a lecture and they had to call the fucking paramedics, Brienne. Plus, you should have seen Galladon when I told him what happened. I think he fucking cried.” Jaime spits all of this out in one breath while he continues to stare, gauging her reaction. What he sees in those blue orbs after he is done speaking surprises the fuck out of him. 

~~~ 

Brienne can feel herself growing more irritated the longer Jaime sits beside her on the bench, but the second he mentions Galladon’s reaction she is suddenly filled with uncontrollable anger. She is so livid her vision is blurred by hot, heavy tears. 

Brienne wants to scream at Galladon for being able to let himself go and cry in front of Jaime but he won’t event talk to her, hardly even acknowledges her existence. She wants to shout at her father until he understands and learns to let her go, realizes that it is her life and her decision. Most of all, she wants to reach inside her own body, straight to her blood stream, and attack the cancer growing and multiplying inside of her. She wants to destroy it the way it has been destroying her since she was twelve years old because how dare it?! 

How is this okay? By whose right was it given permission to take over her body and ruin it to the point that at nineteen years old she has only a few options. Let herself die, or live the remainder of her life in a hospital bed going through surgery after surgery until her body gave up. She keeps telling her father that this is her body and her decision, but really it stopped being her body when the doctor stepped into that office seven years ago and uttered the word cancer. Since then she has been nothing but a victim and a vessel, because someone out there decided this was going to be her life; they chose her. 

Brienne has forgotten all about Jaime Lannister and the tears grow heavier as they form two little rivers down her cheeks. She can feel her cheeks burning red with rage, and she tries to wipe the tears away. 

“Brienne?” Jaime’s voice is so soft, and almost tender, that she is sure he has been momentarily possessed. 

“I’m fine.” She continues to wipe at the tears as she gets up and walks away. She isn’t sure where exactly she’s headed, but she knows that even though he’s mostly a crumby human being, even Jaime Lannister doesn’t deserve the wrath she wants to unleash. 

~~~ 

Selwyn walks into his home back in Tarth late that night. He knows Brienne just needs time to cool down, but he wishes she would call or text, just to let him know she’s alright. Suddenly, the oddest thought hits him. One day, Brienne will stop calling him every Friday afternoon to tell him about her week, to let him know that she is okay. One day, Brienne will cease to exist, but he will still be here, waiting for her call. 

Nobody ever really tells you what it’s like to lose a child, mostly because you’re not supposed to know that pain. Parents are supposed to go first, and it was designed that way for a reason. The pain is unfathomable and even though she is still alive and breathing, Selwyn feels as though he may buckle underneath the weight of the grief he feels. 

It’s this grief that springs him into action almost immediately, sitting down at the desk in his office and firing up his computer. He has researched treatment methods for AML millions of times over the past seven times, but he knows there has to be something out there that he hasn’t found yet, something they haven’t tried. There has to be because otherwise he doesn’t know how he will go on in a world where there only used to be Brienne. 

It is a few hours later, just at the dark is giving way to dawn, that he finds Dr. Oberyn Martell, and he feels as though this name is a life preserver being thrown his way through the crashing waves.


	8. Chapter 8

Brienne’s alarm is ringing loudly, but she still has not been able to drag herself out of bed. Sansa wonders if she should wake her so she doesn’t miss her first class of the day, but she got back so late and even though Brienne had tried to be as quiet as possible, Sansa knows that she cried herself to sleep. It would probably be best to just let her sleep, so she reaches over to the nightstand that sits between their beds and switches the alarm off. 

Sansa continues to sit on her bed, her legs drawn up to her chest and her chin resting on her knees. Her arms are wrapped around her legs, hugging them to her as tightly as possible. The tears started about five minutes ago, and they are just dripping ever so slightly from her eyes, but she still can’t make them stop. She has been sitting in this exact position since she woke up, staring at her best friend. 

In any normal circumstances this would be creepy. In fact, if she woke up and caught her, Sansa knows Brienne would think she had lost her mind. The truth of it though, Sansa is trying to memorize her best friend, because a year from now, six months from now, Brienne will no longer occupy the bed next to her. The only thing Brienne will occupy is a space six feet under the ground and somebody else will probably be sleeping in the bed next to Sansa. 

At the thought of someone else sharing this room that she and Brienne so meticulously set up and made their home, she is sure she can feel a literal rift in her heart. Sansa has had her heart broken by guys before. She has been through hell and back with her ex-boyfriend, but until this moment she didn’t realize that pain like this existed. It’s so beyond anything she’s ever experienced that it has literally shattered her heart, and the one person who has always been there to help her pick up the pieces is leaving her behind.

Sansa doesn’t even realize that she has stated to sob until she closes her eyes to slow down the flow of tears, ad then all of sudden she is being wrapped up in delicately strong arms. Sansa leans her head against her best friend’s shoulder and continues to let herself cry, let out little hiccups, and say softly over and over: 

“It’s not fair. It’s not fair.” 

~~~ 

Galladon wakes up with eyes crusty from the tears he shed as he fell asleep and as he continued to dream of a better life. One before the cancer, before his mother’s death, one where he and Brienne are still best friends. He knows he has to fix this. 

Unfortunately, this is something Galladon has said to himself at least once a day since he started to drift away from Bienne. It something he has been trying to plan for seven years, but each time he starts to think about the inevitable. Except, for years, the inevitable has never seemed real. Both times, Brienne beat the odds and there seemed to be all the time in the world to get back to before. Now, it is here and so close he can see it in clear view ahead of him. For the first time in his life Galladon actually understand the phrase ‘it’s now or never.’ 

He drags his hand down his face, and wipes the sleep from his eyes. Rolling over, he sits on the side of the bed and he reaches over to the nightstand to grope for his cell phone laying on the nightstand. There are a few missed emails about study groups and classes, but the things that catch his eye are the missed text message from Jaime asking for the tenth time in the past three days what exactly was wrong with his sister, and the five missed calls and eventual voicemail from his father. 

“Galladon, call me when you get this. I’ve found it! It’s perfect!” Galladon lets his father’s gravelly voice soothe him as he takes in the words and what they mean. Somewhere inside his voice is echoing that it’s a false sense of security, and no matter what kind of miracle his father has happened upon, there is no way his sister is going to go through with it. 

Galladon calls his father anyway 

~~~ 

Brienne is falling and it seems she will never stop. The only thing he can do is look into her astonishingly beautiful eyes and wait until she hits the bottom. Jaime wakes up from this disturbing dream before Brienne reaches the bottom. He rub his eyes and sits up, leaning against the head board. Looking down at Cersei, still sleeping with her bare back to him and her golden hair splayed out across the white pillow, he feels guilty. 

Why, he’s not quite sure. He didn’t do anything with Brienne in his dream. They didn’t even exchange words. He did feel…something as Brienne fell. Disappointment? He won’t deny his slight hero complex, but all he could do was stand there and watch her fall, didn’t even try to help. This thought, and the flash of her blue eyes staring straight into his as she fell, make something inside his gut twist and he looks over to Cersei to remind himself what’s really important. Cersei, his twin, his other half, the one to whom he belongs. Now, if only she belonged to him as well. 

Now that he thinks about it, she’s the one who should feel guilty. He has done nothing but sacrifice for her since they were children, and she thanks him by running off and taking up with Robert Barartheon. He should be the one who feels betrayed. He starts to think of all the ways in which she has controlled him since they were young, and his blood starts to boil. 

He flings the sex soiled sheets off and starts to move from the bed, but Cersei’s hand on his thigh stops him. She doesn’t say a word as she lifts herself up straddles him. She merely leans down and kisses him as she takes him inside of her. She starts to roll her hips and he forgets everything. All he can think about is Cersei for a moment. He closes his eyes in ecstasy as she moans. When his eyes are fully closed though, and he is no longer staring straight into Cersei’s matching green ones, he sees blue. Blue eyes and blond hair, and then he feels himself come harder than he has since before Cersei announced her relationship with Robert. 

~~~ 

Brienne does feel bad about leaving, at least a little bit. She doesn’t feel as though she’s being selfish for choosing to actually live the rest of her life the way that she wants to. Who knows what will happen in the next few months. She feels as though he may have at least five good ones in her before she starts to really feel herself weaken. It’s not a lot of time, but it’s enough time to say goodbye. 

Now, really thinking about it, Brienne counts herself as almost lucky because who really gets the time to say goodbye to loved ones? She still has time to spend with them and let them know how much they have touched her, what they have meant to her. She decides she will start with Margery. She loves Margery and Sansa both, and they are both her best friends, but she knows Margery will be easier and Brienne can’t handle an emotional draining afternoon after her morning crying session with Sansa. 

So, she texts Margery and they agree to an afternoon at the mall and Brienne smiles because it feels…normal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanna say how much I love you all for reading this, leaving kuddos, and commenting. Finding out how much you guys are still enjoying this story as much as I am is my greatest motivation! Ya'll are all just so wonderful :) 
> 
> Okay, I'm done gushing now. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, especially because it was one of the hardest to write.


	9. Chapter 9

“Dad, this is…I think you’re gonna have a hard time convincing Brienne.” Galladon sighs dejectedly, because he really wanted to believe that his father had stumbled upon something completely new, a cure. He hasn’t though. His father has found something that will help prolong Brienne’s life. 

“Just get her home for the weekend, I think we can do it, Galladon.” There is so much hope in his father’s voice, and his heart breaks. Galladon’s pretty sure there is no way the two of them are going to convince Brienne to spend her remaining time being an experiment for a drug that still requires her to go through more chemo. He tells his father that he will get Brienne home for the weekend, and he will do his best to help convince her to try the new treatment. 

Brienne has survived far longer with AML than anybody ever thought she would. She has been through three stem cell transplants, and two bouts of intense chemotherapy treatments. He’s seen what her life is like during these moments, watched as the tears racked her body when the first long strands of white blond hair started to abandon her head and leave her bald. He stood in the corner of the hospital room during her second session of chemo. He had shrunk further and further into himself as the drugs that had refused to work at first finally attacked the cancer and her body. 

The second time was the worst. Maybe because it was only 16 months ago, and the vision of her trembling in her hospital bed in between ferocious vomiting fits still haunts him. Even when he looks at her now, seemingly healthy looking, he sees her in that bed utterly defeated. If he can barely think about having to see her in that position again, he can only imagine how Brienne must feel about the prospect of having to actually go through it again. 

Galladon already knows how the conversation with Brienne will go, but as he continues to get ready for the day he still goes through scenarios in his head where he and his father actually do convince her to test out this new drug. In each situation though, she always dies because the drug really only buys them some more time. What does more time mean anyway? More time to say goodbye? More time for her to suffer? More time to watch her waste away? In the end, time always runs out and there is only one way this scenario is going to play out. Brienne is going to die. He’s been coping with this fact for years, he just wishes there was a way to make his father cope with it as well. 

~~~ 

Jaime is still out of sorts from his weird vision earlier in the morning. True, he hadn’t even thought her name, or seen her in Cersei’s place. Her eyes were still haunting him a little bit though, and he even considers skipping out on his plans with Galladon, but then he remembers how pale he went when Jaime told him about his sister. Brienne may be the one who’s sick, but she wasn’t the only one suffering through…whatever the hell it was they were going through. 

He was actually still kind of irked that Galladon wouldn’t just tell him what was going on. Jaime wasn’t used to being so left out, and helpless when it came to people he loved. In accordance with Bro Code, Jaime would never be so soft hearted as to tell Galladon any of this, but Galladon is his best friend and he does think he could help a little bit. Jaime decides that he doesn’t have to know what is wrong with Brienne in order to help cheer Galladon up. He resolves to let Galladon win the first few rounds of one on one basketball as he heads out with his duffle bag and ball to meet Galladon at the courts. 

~~~ 

Brienne is just grabbing her order from the Starbucks in the food court at the King’s Landing Mall when Margery appears beside her with a slightly disapproving look. 

“Are you sure you should be drinking that? Isn’t caffeine sort of like a drug?” Brienne rolls her eyes. 

“Okay Nurse Margery, I have cancer, I’m not pregnant.” 

“Haha, very funny, Margery deadpans, but quickly continues before Brienne can say anything else. “I’m just saying, it can’t be good for you.” 

“Marg, coffee isn’t good for anyone. Plus I’m pretty sure the cancer will get me before I can over caffeinate.” Brienne smiles a little at her joke. Margery’s frown deepens. 

“You’re not funny.” 

“Okay, fine. No more talk of…the “C” word for the rest of the day. Promise.” Brienne holds out her right fist wit the pinky extended. Margery smiles slowly and links her own pinky with Brienne’s. 

“Deal.” They both laugh and Margery orders her own drink before they set off to do as much damage to Margery’s Master Card as possible. “Oooh, we have to go to Nordstrom’s, Brie! There’s a wonderful pair of blue heels that would killer on you!” Brienne starts to shake her head, terrified of anything that might make her taller than she already is. Before she can even start though, Margery turns to her with a familiar glint in her eye. 

“I herd about this party at the SigEp house this weekend. You know what that means. It means you need a new outfit, and these shoes. You know I don’t take no for an answer, so don’t even try.” Margery threaded her arm through Brienne’s and, linked at the elbows with no escape, Brienne was drug off. By the end of the day, Brienne is equipped with a new pair of heels that she vowed would never see the light of day, and new pair of skinny dark wash jeans that Margery had declared she just had to have. 

In all, it had been a spectacularly normal day of shopping with her best friend and she doesn’t even realize until she crawls into ben later that night that she hadn’t thought about the cancer all day. She hopes Margery had forgotten all about it as well, that was her plan after all. Live as normally as possible for as long as she could. For the first time in days she finally feels like things might be oaky again, like her loved ones are starting to respect her decision. 

Brienne is just finishing up setting the alarm on her phone when it begins to buzz in her hand. The name that flashes across the screen is not unfamiliar, but her brother hardly ever contacts her so she is caught off guard for a second. A thousand different things that could have happened to their father run through her mind in a second, but in the second that follows she knows exactly why he’s calling and the hello she hisses into the phone when she answers is so angry she barely recognizes it as her own voice.


	10. Chapter 10

Brienne sighs as she waits for Galladon to answer the door. She was so angry when she answered the phone earlier, and he had intended to stay angry and keep the conversation as short as possible. She had just been so hopeful that they were all starting to come around; to understand. Then he said hello and his voice cracked in that way it did when he crawled into her bed when they were little and he tried to explain to her that their mother wasn’t coming home. 

At the sound of his voice Brienne had felt a lump rise in he own throat. Big brothers don’t cry. They just don’t, it’s the rule. Big brothers are the ones who pick on you for worrying too much over your outfits. They know everything and they protect you from the bullies on the back of the bus. Big brothers are invincible. Hearing the tears in her brother’s voice is the only thing she needs to relent and when he asks to talk to her in person she can do nothing but agree. 

Now, standing outside of his apartment and freezing her fucking ass off in the autumn breeze, she’s wishing she had been less forgiving. He does eventually open the door for her though and she can see the slight tint of red to his eyes that mark the fact that he has in fact been crying, at least a little bit. They walk back up to his third floor apartment in silence 

“It looks good,” Galladon nods toward her hair as she takes the ski cap off and cuddles up into a corner of the couch. She runs a hand through her short white blonde hair self-consciously, wishing she hadn’t been too lazy to mess with her wig. She looks up at him and waits. Waits for the anger, the bargaining, the grief. 

That’s the thing about dying slowly, Brienne thinks, not only does she have to deal with her own grief, but she also has to watch her friends and family grieve. It’s an unbearable process at times because she has to be the one to reassure them that it's all going to be okay, and life will go on, and she’s going to be in a better place. She doesn’t really know any of this, she says it because someone has to say it. She can’t really fathom what they would all be like if they didn’t have some hope for After. 

The thing is, just once, Brienne wishes someone would say it to her. She’s not asking for streets paved with gold and a big ‘ole mansion in the sky, but something would be nice. Maybe she could have her own little cloud, just a small one, to look down on Earth and check in on everyone from time to time. Just a little reassurance that someday things will be okay for everyone she’s hurt along the way. 

“Brienne, are you okay?” Galladon is sitting on the opposite arm of the couch and looking down at her expectantly. She clears her throat and answers, 

“Of course, yeah.” 

“Are you going to answer my question, then?” 

“Sorry, I was zoned out. What was your question?’ 

“What are you doing this weekend?” Galladon looks straight at her when he asks this, and she wishes she could read his face, try to figure out what game he’s playing at, but he seems to look innocent enough. Maybe he was finally coming around. Maybe he genuinely wanted to spend time with her. So, she tell him that she is as free as a bird and smiles up at him. He smiles back at her and she starts to form a list of a hundred different things they could do together. 

Taking a road trip home is not on the list, and when he begins to tell her this is exactly what he thinks they should be doing with their weekend, her heart falls. She feels embarrassed that she even let herself think that Galladon just wanted to hang out with his little sister, cancer or not, it seems she is till just an annoying little sister to Galladon. She wants to get up and walk out of his apartment when she feels hear cheeks start to heat up with the shame and betrayal that has suddenly twisted her stomach into knots. As eh starts to get up though, she feels angry. Angry because she shouldn’t feel embarrassed that she wants to hang out with her brother, that the she wants things to be normal again. If anyone should be embarrassed, it’s Galladon. Suddenly the fury is rising up and she can’t push it down anymore. 

“No.” Her voice is steely and absolute as it cuts off his explanation of why exactly they should be spending their weekend on Tarth. 

“Brie-“ 

“No, Galladon. I’m not going to waste any more time listening to you and dad try to convince me to go through more chemotherapy. I’m done. That’s it. No more.” She is standing and towering above him at this point, and from this vantage point she almost feels like the older sibling. Just as she’ about to go and tell Galladon how it’s going to be, he stands up and she has to look up at him again. He gathers himself up to his full height and he looks just as pissed off as she feels. 

“No, that’s not it. This cannot be it. It’s worked before, it can work again.” He looks like he actually believes this, like he has convinced himself that whatever new scheme their father has up his sleeve-and she knows there has to be a scheme, otherwise Galladon would not have even brought up going back to their boring hometown for a whole weekend- is actually going to work. She takes a deep breath before she tries to continue in a calmer voice. She needs to explain, for the millionth time, that it just isn’t going to work, but that’s okay. Everything will be okay in the end. He doesn’t let her though, and continues on with trying to persuade her. 

“Don’t, Brienne. Just…just hear him out. Please, things could change-“ 

“Nothing’s going to change Galladon.” Brienne’s voice is softer, but still resolute in her decision. 

“You don’t know that! You won’t even try! You’re just giving up!” The helplessness in his voice should stop what she is about to say, but the anger she has been fighting all night-for seven fucking years, really-bubbles over and she cannot stop it. 

“How dare you. How fucking dare you. I have been fighting for years, so excuse me if I’m a little fucking tired. You do not get to talk to me about giving up. It’s not my fault you just weren’t around to see it.” Galladon does have the decency to at least look down at this point, and when he finally looks back up at her his eyes are shining. It’s an automatic reaction anymore to comfort them, her friends and family, and offer words of encouragement and strength. She fights it though, the pull to draw him into her arms and let him cry. Instead, she focuses on her boiling blood, and her cheeks flaming with rage. 

“You made your choice, you decided you didn’t want to be around for…the process, and that’s fine. That’s was your decision and I respected it. Now, please, respect mine.” 

“Bri-“ 

“No, Galladon. Just…just let it go. Let me go.” She takes a step backward, trying to walk away but still trying to gauge her brother’s reaction. Brienne is determined to have the last word in this conversation because it’s her body, and her word is law when it comes to governing how it should be treated. Galladon grabs her hand in steely grip though. 

“I don’t want you to die.” The last time she saw her brother cry was as they were lowering their mother’s casket into the ground. It had terrified her then, seeing someone so brave being so broken and defeated. Now, it broke her heart and took her breath away for a second. Galladon was never going to win any ‘big brother of the year; awards, but he was still her brother, still someone who shouldn’t be crying. 

She is trying to come up with something to say, trying to make him understand in any way that she can because he has to. Before she can open her mouth there is a sound, a clearing of a throat, from the doorway of the living room. They both turn their heads in the same instant, and to Brienne’s absolute horror Jaime Lannister is standing just inside the living room. 

“Am I uh…am I interrupting?” He sounds embarrassed, but even the color ring in his cheeks doesn’t help the overwhelming desire she has for the cancer to roar its ugly head and taker here right this very second. 

Brienne closes her eye and exhales with an audible “fuck.”


	11. Chapter 11

There aren’t many moments in his life that Jaime can remember being very embarrassed. His carefree attitude saves him from such circumstances. In this moment though, as soon as he makes his presence known, he wishes he could push a rewind button somewhere and instead just walk quietly back out the door he had so inconspicuously entered. Actually, he should really go back in time and not enter the apartment at all. Just turn around and go back to his place. 

To Jaime’s great misfortune though, no such button exists. Instead, he stands in the doorway awkwardly, the blush that had started to creep up his neck and blossom on his cheeks grows redder as each moment passes that no one says anything. Finally, he lifts up the game and beer he had brought over with the intention cheering his friend up and distracting him from whatever family drama he was dealing with. 

“I uh…I just uh…brought over the new Call of Duty, dude.” Jaime wants to smack himself, because really? That’s the best he could do? He really had the best of intentions with coming over here. It sucked seeing his friend so depressed and he’d only meant to help drag him out of his funk for a little bit. 

Galladon closes his eyes and draws in a deep breath, but at the same time he opens his mouth to say something- Jaime hopes it’s finally a real explanation- Brienne rips her hand from Galladon’s grasp and looks directly at Jaime. Her eyes are narrowed, and the smile on her face is tight. She looks like she wants to kill him, and Jaime kinda wishes she would, anything to escape this excruciatingly uncomfortable situation he has created. 

“Well, how very nice of you, Lannister. I’ll see you around, Galladon.” She pushes past him on her way out, and even though she pushes him harder than he thinks she needed to, he doesn’t make any snide remark about her looks or stature. He just stays as quiet and lets her push him into the hard wood of the archway that leads into the living room. It’s a soft shove, and he hardly even feels a thing, but he still catches the flash of fatigue in her blue eyes as she continues past him. In that moment, as she disappears out the door, Jaime has never felt more like a total, worthless asshole in his entire life. 

~~~ 

Galladon wants to go after her. He needs to say something, make her see that yeah, he may not completely buy into the miracle of the experimental drug that their father has decided to invest his faith in, but it’s something. It’s not a cure, but it’s…it’s something, it’s time, and it’s all they’ve got. Is that really too much to ask? 

He walks toward the door, attempting to follow her, and he realizes that it may not be too much to ask of her, but it’s really very selfish. Which was the whole reason he had been skeptical about it in the first place, really. He knew Brienne didn’t want to go through it all again just to exist the rest of her days in the hospital, too drugged up to even carry on whole conversations. 

He can’t even remember when he decided to persuade her it was a good idea to go along with their father’s idea. He just knows that when she answered the phone and later curled up on his couch, he couldn’t picture a life where he wasn’t Brienne Tarth’s older brother. The thought of her no longer being around to curl herself in a ball onto his couch and look up at him expectantly, almost excitedly, scared the fucking shit out of him. Scared him even more than looking on as she suffered through drug treatments that bought her just enough time to…to say goodbye; to say ‘I love you.’ 

“I’m sorry man, I just… I thought…” Jaime’s voice is loud in the tense quiet of the apartment. Galladon looks back at him as he closes the door. Maybe he should be angry with him? What did he really interrupt that Galladon hadn’t already royally fucked though? He shakes his head in response. 

“It’s fine. You could have had better timing, but it was already going downhill. I shouldn’t have attacked her with the idea anyway.” Galladon sits down on the couch and leans his head on the back of the couch. He squeezes his eyes closed and wishes he were a different person, a better brother. He doesn’t deserve to be Brienne Tarth’s older brother. Maybe, he thinks, this is his punishment for keeping away for so long. 

‘Should we go after her or something?” 

“No,” Galladon replies. “She needs to cool down. I’d just make it worse anway." 

“Is she going to be okay?” Jaime sounds worried, and Galladon opens his eyes. He looks up at his best friend, trying to find a way to explain away the argument he and his sister had been having without having to use the ‘C’ word. Really, though, what is so shameful about having cancer? Yeah, it sucks, and he gets that. He really fucking gets that, but he’s never actually understood why Brienne was always so insistent on keeping it some big secret. 

Plus, telling his best friend isn’t like telling the whole campus, and if there was ever anyone Galladon could talk to about big stuff, other than his family, it was Jaime. So, he tells him. Goes into every gory detail, down to watching his sister loose her hair and vomit all over herself when she was too weak to move fast enough to the basin, as he stood in the corner helplessly praying to gods he now knows don’t really exist. By the end of it all, a few tears have leaked from the sides of Galladon’s eyes, and Jaime is sitting down beside him. He looks pale and horrified as he utters a barely audible “fuck.” 

~~~ 

Brienne cries herself to sleep again. At least this time Sansa is out and Brienne doesn’t have to worry about disrupting her sleep or keeping her up with her sobs. Though she knows Sansa wouldn’t mind, even insisting on at least attempting to comfort her. Brienne just wants to be alone. Alone to sulk, think, and be mad. 

She was so angry at Galladon, and at Jaime for interrupting, for finding out her truth. She couldn’t even see straight. She had to lean against the side of the elevator to calm herself as it closed at took the short descent down to the lobby. By the time she made it back to her dorm room, she was already starting to let the teas slip out as the argument replayed in her mind over and over again. She watched it all play out in slow motion and tried to figure out how she could have missed the sound of the door opening and Jaime walking in. 

The thought that of all people to find out about her situation, it had to be Jaime Lannister, causes her tears to come faster and harder. What would he do with this information? He knew her condition-or at least had some idea of it- and he saw her awful looking hair. Now, there was no shortage of jokes he could make at her expense. He’d already proven himself to be cruel and relentless where she was concerned, what would stop him from using all of this against her? 

She knows that Galladon cares for her, she’s always known that even though he’s a crap bother, he really does love her. She knows that he will do his best to keep his best friend from being even more cruel than usual. This makes her cry even harder though, because she can’t handle being treated differently, not by someone who used to make her life hell. She thinks that the jokes would actually be better because at least that would be normal. Jaime Lannister being nice is not normal, and being reminded that she is not normal is not something she can handle. That makes it real. 

When people start to treat her differently because she’s no longer strong, because she’s actually dying, that’s when the reality will come crashing down on her. Right now there’s only a little pain and she still looks healthy, it’s easy to fool even herself. When that is no longer possible though, she will have to face the bone chilling realization that it’s really over. This is all she gets, and what has she honestly accomplished in her short life? What was the actual point of it all?


	12. Chapter 12

Brienne didn’t want to go agree to go home with Galladon for the weekend. She didn’t want to have to spend several hours in the quiet car driving all the way back to Tarth with her brother. She didn’t want to have to spend her few days off listening to her father trying to talk her into whatever new trial medicine he had stumbled upon. Most of all, she did not want to have to break her father’s heart for the millionth time. 

She had every intention of ignoring all of her brother’s calls. And she did. Until Friday afternoon, she was fairly certain she had succeed in sending her brother the message that she was not going to talk to him until…well that part she hadn’t quite figured out, but it was certainly going to be a while. However, after her classes had ended for the day and she drug herself up to her dorm room, she opened the door only to find Galladon sitting on her bed and Sansa zipping up the same duffle bag Brienne had used for several years to transport her things to and from the hospital during treatments. 

“What the hell is this?” Brienne demanded as she threw her worn backpack down by her bed, her books landing with a thunk loud enough to startle whoever lived below them, and emphasize her anger. 

“Look, I know you don’t wanna go, and dad’s scheme is probably only halfway baked, and you really don’t like me right now. I get that, and you should be mad at me. I deserve it. Dad doesn’t though. Brienne, he deserves….something, at least more of an explanation. One in person.” Brienne set her jaw and was determined that he would not get his way. He may have been right, but he did not deserve to get his way. 

“Galladon, you can’t just come in here and-“ 

“Brienne, I think you need to go.” Sansa looked up at her and held out the duffle bag, almost like a peace offering. “I know you’re angry with your brother, but he’s right. Your dad, he’s just…he loves you so much. I know you feel like he’s suffocating you sometimes, but he just wants to…I think, if he’s going to lose you, he deserves to know why and he deserves more than a phone call. Go see your dad, Brienne.” In the end, Brienne had resigned herself to her fate, because…well he was Dad. 

She had been able to take care of herself for years, he had raised her to be independent, but no matter how old she got, or how far away she moved, deep down she was still that five year old girl who crawled into her father’s bed when the boogey man hunted her dreams. T

his is how Brienne finds herself in her childhood bedroom, trying to fall sleep. Her body is beyond exhausted from her full day of classes-one with none other than Jaime Lannister, who she caught staring at her more than once-and the very quiet ride with her brother. She should be fast asleep, but her mind is still wide awake, trying to figure how she is going to break the news to her father…again. It was late when they arrived at their home in Tarth so luckily Brienne had been able to avoid a confrontation with her father so far. The last time she saw him she had broken his heart and run out just minutes later. She had called the next day to apologize, but seeing him was a whole different story. 

She is sure of her decision. Making him sure of it, or at least understand it, will be the hardest thing she’s ever had to do. All she wants is to live her life as normal as possible. She is so tired of hospitals and the relentless chemo and radiation. Is it too much to ask to just…be normal…normal-ish?! She knows that seeing her father, watching his eyes light up with hope as he explains this new treatment, whatever it is, will be hard to resist. She really does hope she is able to stand firm in her decision and reasoning. A secret part of her though, a part she doesn’t even realizes exists until she hears the quiet voice inside her head calling out a silent prayer that this time it’s real. This time, he’s actually found a miracle. 

~~~ 

Selwyn hears his children come in late at night. He hears them rustling about, trying to be quiet and attempting the step over the two squeaky steps at the tops of the staircase. His been laying bed, awake and praying. Praying that his plan will be heard, praying that Brienne has at least come with an open mind, praying that his children will somehow be brother and sister again before it’s too late. He hears them go to their perspective rooms without so much as a goodnight to each other. 

Selwyn heaves a great sigh as he closes his eyes and wishes on every shooting star that has ever passed him by, every birthday candle he has ever blown out… every single coin he has ever thrown into a fountain that he had been a better father. 

He never meant to be an awful father. He dedicated his life his family, and when his wife died, Brienne and Galladon were his saving grace, his whole world. There’s on manual on any of this. No one tells you how hard it is to raise two children on your own, they never prepare you for the news that your child is sick, and he only did the best he could. He needed to be there for Brienne, and her frequent hospital visits and innumerable doctor’s visits meant that Galladon suffered too. 

To make it up to him, Selwyn tried to make it to as many soccer games as possible, and he never forced him to spend time in the hospital when it was clear the boy was uncomfortable and wished to be anywhere else. Now he realizes he should have pushed the issue. They would be closer now. They wouldn’t be so broken. Galladon was only a kid though, he had just lost his mother and his little sister was following her quickly. How could he save one and console the other at the same time, all while trying to just stay in one piece? 

Even though he stopped believing in gods long before Brienne was even diagnosed, Selwyn says a hopeless prayer that when he opens his eyes again, his wife will be there, her golden hair braided and hanging over one shoulder, her big blue eyes looking down at him with love and affection, and her soft, small hand dragging its way comfortingly through his graying hair. 

Selwyn wakes up in the morning shivering from the cold morning breeze coming in through the window he forgot to close, and alone.


	13. Chapter 13

The waves crash loudly against the sand, and the sun is just rising into the sky as Brienne sits on her down on the beach behind their large house, trying to catch her breath. She has just finished her run, actually these days it’s more of a power walk with a slight jog thrown in at the very end to make herself feel like she’s actually accomplished anything. 

She’s pretty sure that if her father or brother caught her attempting to run in any capacity, they would force her into bed rest for the rest of her days. She misses it though, the constant thump thump thump as her feet hit the sand. The salty, cold morning wind blowing against her. For Brienne, there is no better feeling than her lungs racing to catch up with her as she pushes her body to its limit. She remembers when she was at her most fit, when she could run so fast that at moments she felt as if she could fly. 

Those are the moments Brienne longs for as she closes her eyes and lets the air blow through her short blond hair. In those flashes of time, however brief they were, she was free. There were no classes to worry about, there were no distance brothers, no overbearing fathers, and best of all, there was no cancer. Nothing was weighing her down, keeping her limbs or mind from working properly. It was unadulterated bliss. 

Now, her body betrays her and she can barely work herself up to a slight jog without gasping for breath and her legs turning to jelly beneath her. It’s just another item to add to the long list of things that suck about dying. 

“I thought I’d find you down here.” 

“What do you want, Galladon?” Brienne doesn’t even open her eyes to look up at him. Instead, she buries her hands deeper into the sand at her sides and lets the cool dampness fill the spaces between her fingers. 

“To talk.” 

“Your timing is impeccable.” This time she does her left her gaze, but as she squints up at his face, trying to read his face and see where exactly this conversation is heading, he keeps his gaze trained on the water in front of them. Brienne follows his gaze and sees the ferry that is making its way to their tiny island from the mainland. 

“Do you remember the first time mom and dad took us out on the sail boat?” Galladon still doesn’t move as he speaks, and his voice sounds farther away than the ferry itself. Brienne still isn’t sure where this conversation is going, but at least it’s a conversation, and one that doesn’t involve him pushing her towards a treatment she doesn’t want, at least not yet, so she plays along. 

“Yeah, you threw up like five times before we even made it out to open sea. Mom was so worried that she almost made dad turn back around and forget the whole thing. It took a lot of strength, but you didn’t throw up the whole rest of the day you were so sacred he might actually do it.” Galladon chuckles and sits down beside her. Brienne smiles too, but still neither of them take their eyes away from the ferry that is inching its way closer and closer. 

“Dad started teaching me how to sail that day, I remember he was letting me steer all myself for the first time when it happened.” 

“Galladon, don’t.” Neither of them are smiling now and Brienne has started to feel lightheaded and nauseous from the sharp turn his story has taken. This is not a story that is drug out at family functions to relive the good ole’ days, or to look back on in humor and affection. 

“I remember the way the boom smacked you in the back and the way you fell into the water almost in slow motion. Mom screamed and I just stood there watching you fall with my mouth hanging open, but dad, he jumped right into action. As soon as you hit the water he was right behind you, diving in and dragging you out.” Brienne remembers that moment so clearly it feel like it’s happening all over again. The feeling of falling, the helplessness that overwhelmed her as soon as her body hit the water in a painful belly flop. 

Up until she was twelve, and sitting in the oncologist ward of the hospital, Brienne would point back to this as the most terrifying incident of her life. When she was a kid she would have given anything to forget the feeling and never remember the incident again. Now, she thinks she might give just about anything if she could still point back to this particular event in her life as the most terrifying. “Have I ever apologized for almost drowning you?” Brienne’s eyes widen and turns to look at Galladon, who still hasn’t torn his gaze away from the sea and the ferry. 

“Galladon, I don’t…you were just a kid. It wasn’t…it wasn’t your fault.” Brienne has never held him accountable for her fall. He was the one at the helm, but she was the one leaning over the edge to see if she could spot some fish. It was really just one big accident. Neither of them speak and Brienne continues to study his face. His hair a curly mop of golden blond hair with stray curls that spring out in odd places because he can’t keep his hands from running through it when he’s frustrated or angry. 

He’s also sporting a day or two of golden scruff on his face that makes him look much older than his 22 years. Her brother, she realizes, would actually look quite handsome if her didn’t look so tired; so world weary. She wonders when time started to show up on his face, how long he has been sporting those jarring rings under his eyes. The sound of his voice makes her snap her attention back to the sea. She doesn’t want him to see her softened features, he doesn’t deserve that. 

“I know it’s kinda a crappy memory to recall, but other than that fall, it was a good day. It was actually the last good day. Before the accident. Before cancer.” 

“It was pretty good. Mom couldn’t stop taking pictures and dad even threatened to throw the camera overboard at one point.” They both chuckle at the bittersweet memory and then Galladon finally turns his gaze toward Brienne and looks at her through squinted blue eyes. 

“Do you ever wish you could go back?” Brienne raises an eyebrow at him in response, because what a stupid question. Who wouldn’t go back to that? It was so completely perfect that it feels like another life. Another girl had lived those moments and Brienne is just allowed to see them in memory. 

“Then why won’t you consider dad’s plan then?” Brienne groans and lays her head on her knees. She should have known where this was going. She lifts her head and looks right into Galladon’s eyes. 

“I’ve told you before, Galladon, why. And, what does my decision on this matter have to do with me wanting to go back to a better time.” 

"I just…I thought maybe…” Galladon loos away from her and back to the waves crashing against the sand. He takes a deep breath and continues. 

“Look, I know it’s crazy. It’s not a cure, and that fucking sucks. But Brie…” at this, he turns to look at her and then goes on. “There’s never going to be a cure, but is it really so bad that we want more time with you. Time to make more memories like the sailboat?” Brienne doesn’t answer, just turns to look back at the ferry that has finally made its way to the dock and started to unload its precious cargo of island workers and a few late season tourists. 

The silence between them is so loud and tense that it has stated to become a physical weight pressing down on her chest. She is searching for an answer, a reasonable explanation, anything that doesn’t sound like an excuse. 

“Just…really think about it. For dad.” Galladon gets up and shakes the sand off his cargo shorts. He holds his hand out to her, but she shakes her head and continues to watch the ferry distribute the people invading her precious island. He leaves her in the sand, the sun beaming down on her and starting to tint her skin a bright red, and thinking about family and choices. Wondering if their family is too broken to fix. Damn Galladon for thrusting this responsibility on her! Damn him for making sense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can I just say again how much I love you all?!?! Because I do! Also, now that I'm done with school and work is slowing down I wanna start replying to all of you individually because I've just realized I can do that with that little reply button that I just noticed like two days ago... I have nothing to say for that other than whoops :/ On another note, I am so excited for the next chapter with Jaime and Oberyn!!


	14. Chapter 14

His father is standing at the large bay window in the living room, watching the early morning sun rise over the island and turn the sea below their cliff side home into a sparkling mirror when Galladon walks in through the front door. 

“Hey, dad.” His father smiles as he turns to greet him. 

“Good morning. Where have you been?” 

“Beach.” His dad takes a sip from his coffee cup and then lifts it up and tells Galladon there is more in the kitchen. Galladon shakes his head and heads for the stairs instead. 

“Don’t go too far. I want to talk to you and your sister over breakfast.” Galladon pauses halfway up the stairs and turns back to look down at his father. 

“Can’t it wait a while? Maybe until like dinner or something?” 

“We don’t have to decide anything right away this morning. I just want to…present my idea. I’ll even make pancakes.” Galladon looks at him skeptically. 

“With chocolate chips?” 

“With chocolate chips and a side of bacon.” His father smiles and shakes his head just slightly at how easily his oldest can be swayed when it comes to his stomach. 

“Fine. I don’t think Brienne is gonna go for it, but if I get pancakes out of all this I’ll go along with it.” Galladon starts to head upstairs toward the shower, but turns back around at the top. “By the way, Brienne’s outside on the beach.” 

Selwyn looks up at him, and then asks “how long has she been out there? Was she running? Did she sound okay?” By the end, his father’s voice starts to sound a little bit worried and Galladon winces at brining up the subject again. 

“Not sure about the first one, but she sounded a bit winded in the beginning so I’d wager she probably attempted a run. As far as how she sounded, well she was healthy enough to get angry at me, so I’d say she sounded A-okay.” With that he turned around and headed straight for the shower, intent on missing the interrogation that would ensue as Brienne walked in the door. 

~~ 

“So, how was your run?” Her father turns around from the coffee maker as Brienne comes into the kitchen still braiding her wet blond hair over one shoulder. She finishes securing the end in a plastic band and then reaches for the cup her father offers her. 

“And hello to you too, dad.” Brienne smiles and kisses him lightly on the cheek as she set her cup down on the counter and proceeds to pour copious amounts of cream and sugar into the cup. 

“I don’t think it’s a very good idea for you to be over exerting yourself like that, Brie.” Brienne continues to stir her coffee and doesn’t answer. 

“I’m serious, Brienne. I know you want to continue like nothing is wrong, but you can’t ignore-“ 

“I’m not ignoring it, dad,” Brienne interrupts harsher than she intended and she sees her father’s face fall a bit. “I’m sorry, I know you’re only trying to help.” She turns around and lifts her mouth into a small smile. “No more running, I promise.” Her father smiles and turns back to refill his own cup of coffee. 

“I’m starving. Where are those pancakes you promised?” Galladon sits down at the kitchen table and reaches out a hand to grab a few pieces of bacon from the platter sitting in the middle of the kitchen table. No sooner has he grabbed one though than Brienne swats at his hand and looks down at him as she puts a pitched of orange juice on the table. 

“Pig, why can’t you wait for everybody else for once?” Galladon grumbles and drops the bacon back down on the platter. 

“Fine, princess, but-“ 

“Okay,” their father interjects loudly. “Breakfast is served.” With that he sets down a pile of chocolate chip pancakes large enough to feed a small army down in the middle of the table. As they begin their meal, Brienne feels almost…happy? Is it wrong for someone who is dying to feel happy? They are hardly a family to be envied. In fact, sometimes they hardly feel like a family at all. But here, in this moment, with the bickering and the pancakes it feels…right. 

She’s still angry with her brother, and they have so much to work out that it still sorta scares her that there might not be enough time for all of it, but something about the morning leads her to think that they just might be okay someday. 

“Dad, these pancakes are great! Aren’t you gonna eat?” Galladon is talking through mouths full of bacon and pancake, and Brienne is about to scold him when she sees their father setting a pile of notes in the place where his breakfast should be. 

“I will, but first I want to talk.” Brienne washes her mouthful of pancake down with a gulp of orange juice and looks at her father. She just wants to tell her father in the gentlest way possible that she doesn’t want to go through with anymore chemo or any other treatments. Looking at him though, she knows the only way out if this is to just sit and listen to whatever it is he has found. Who knows, maybe he really had found a miracle after all. 

“Talk away,” she says. 

~~~ 

Selwyn takes a deep breath and begins to tell them all about his discovery. 

“The drug is called Trazitopram. It’s only being used in clinical trials right now, but I’ve been corresponding with Dr. Martell and he thinks you would be a prime candidate for the trial.” Selwyn doesn’t look up when he takes a breath. He doesn’t want to see her face, see that she’s really only humoring him. Instead, he takes out more notes from his folder and continues to explain how the drug works to prevent the proteins that help the cancer grow and multiply from functioning. 

“Thus, the cancer could eventually be eradicated with time. Early trials show that in some patients with AML it has shown to be very promising when paired with intense chemotherapy.” Selwyn finishes his speech and takes a large gulp of juice, still looking down at his notes. 

“How many patients?” Selwyn finally looks up at his daughter and sees her staring down at her plate as she pushes the last half of her pancake through her syrup, but never lifting it up to her mouth. 

“It’s only been in trial for a few-“ 

“How many, dad?” 

“Brienne-“ Galladon starts to jump in and try to help his father, but Selwyn stops him, not wanting the two of them to drift even farther apart because of him. 

“It’s okay, Galladon. It’s her decision, she should know all the facts and figures.” Selwyn turns back to Brienne. “Five or six. I know it sounds like a small percentage, Brienne, but I really think-“ 

“Can I just…can I have some time to think about it?” Bienne looks up at him and smiles a little bit. Selwyn doesn’t think he’s ever heard anything sound so good before. He thinks that, corny as it is, there must be a tiny chorus of angles looking down on him and singing Halleluiah. It’s nowhere near a victory, but it’s not a flat out rejection either. It’s…well it’s definitely something. 

“I think that sounds like a great idea.” 

~~~ 

Jaime has been debating for the past few hours on whether or not he should call or text Galladon to see how things are going. He wants to show his best friend that he’s here for him, and a small secret part of him just really wants to know how Brienne is doing. The shock of her short, white blond hair that night at Galladon’s apartment was alarming enough, it was most definitely a marker of the cancer treatment she had received in the past. 

He continued to watch her during the class they shared, looking fore more signs. She didn’t look much different, same large mouth, same smattering of freckles across her face, but her eyes had seemed to grow more tired in the recent days. The dark circles that decorated her blue eyes grew more prominent and alarming. 

The fact that Brienne of all people has chosen to give up instead of fight is terrifying to Jaime. He’s an ass to her, there’s no denying that. It’s become his worst habit, and he fears it might be all his fault that she has chosen to forego treatment and, well…go away. 

He can’t say the word, can’t even bring himself to think it because then it’s real and it could actually be his fault. He’s sure there are many other factors to her decision, but he had contributed to making her a laughing stock on campus when his name actually had power and meaning. Maybe, if he had been less of an ass, if he had just left her alone. Why couldn’t he just leave her alone? Why did he get such a sick pleasure at seeing her skin glow red and her eyes darken as she formed her own comebacks? Why couldn’t he- 

“Jaime, are you going to come back to bed anytime soon?” Cersie’s voice rings through his thoughts from the other side of the bathroom door, but no matter how much her siren song tempts him, she can’t calm the horrifying thoughts running through his mind. He doesn’t say anything as he continues to brace himself on the vanity countertop and stare at his reflection. He wonders, how he has let it get this far out of hand. The affair with his sister, the Arey’s debacle, the thing with Brienne…his life. 

“I’ll be out in a sec, Cers.” Jaime hollers over the running water of the sink he turns out to drown over his whispered prayers. Then, right there in his sister’s bathroom he makes a deal with whatever gods or fates are listening. If Brienne lives, if she goes through with the treatment, he will end things with Cersei, he will never say a bad thing to or about Brienne ever again. If Brienne decides that her life hasn’t been completely ruined by him, he will try to the best damn person ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I hope Jaime doesn't feel to out of character here. When I went through and read it again, I felt like it def sounded like a man who was starting to feel like a crap human being and was desperate for redemption. I feel like a lot of people have these moments of self actualization where they make deals with God, but like most people, Jaime may or may not be able to keep such ostentatious promises made in the deep of night. We shall see. Anyway, love you all :)
> 
> Also, sorry there's no Oberyn :( He will most def show up next chapter though, promise!


	15. Chapter 15

Jaime breaks his promise for the first time a few hours later when Cersei wakes him up by throwing her leg over his own and straddling him. This is her favorite position because she gets to be in control; it’s his because he gets the best view as he watches her come undone at his touch. 

In retrospect, he should have just left after he finished making his new vows, but Cersei had been so persuading, and he had sworn that all they were going to do was sleep, nothing more. In the end, his cock won out, as always, and by the time he is cleaned up and walking out of Cersei’s apartment, he is feeling like a failure. A satisfied failure, but a failure nonetheless. 

It probably isn’t all his fault anyway, and maybe the first step in all of this is to first be nice to Brienne. This is his new, achievable, goal as he walks into the nearest Starbucks to refuel for the day: Starting now, he will be nice to Brienne, and actually mean it too. Baby steps, Lannister, baby steps, he thinks to himself as he steps up to the counter to order the largest, strongest coffee they offer. 

~~~ 

Brienne spent most of the bright, sunny Saturday locked up in her room and going over the research and notes her father had given her on the drug and the doctor he had found. She had really only asked for time to think about it so she could come up with a way to break it to him without breaking his heart too much. 

She looked at his notes though and she could see his hope come through in the thoroughness of his research and in the correspondence with this Doctor Martell. Actually, the more she read through the emails, the angrier she got at this doctor, because how dare he give such false hope to her father?! This doctor had never even met her, had probably barely even glanced at her charts and medical history. They hadn’t even done a full scan yet, who knew how far the cancer had grown and morphed?! 

The hope he had started to give to her father was careless of his profession and just…plain wrong. She could see that it had worked though. Her father had fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. The deeper she dug though, she started to feel herself fall under the same spell of hope. By the time she had finished going over her fathers notes for at least the tenth time, she had to wipe away the tears that had collected on her eyelashes. 

Now, after a quiet, and relatively normal evening with her family, she is lying in bed, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark constellations that decorate her ceiling and wondering if it is really possible. Brienne has never been so confused in all of her nineteen years. Deep down, she does not feel hopeful. In fact, all she feels deep down is anger, sadness, and hollowness because she knows how this will all end. That is why she had refused the treatment in the beginning. She knows that this is it; this is all she gest and she has to somehow be okay with that. She had thought deciding to refuse the treatment was her way of being brave, of telling the fates, the powers that be, the seven gods of old, that she was done fighting. Knowing when to give up, she had always thought, was part of being brave. She has been fighting cancer-not to mention the world and its view of her looks-for too long and she is just so tired and frankly, it just all really sucks. Maybe she hasn’t been brave with this thing. Maybe she really has been selfish in giving up? The thing is though, it has never felt to her like she is giving up, it feels more like giving in to the inevitable 

In the deepest part of the night, just as Saturday night is giving way to Sunday morning, Brienne decides that maybe she won’t go through with the treatment, but what is so wrong with hoping for a little more than this life has given her so far? The least she can do for her father, the one person who has never given up hope or criticized her because she’s not exactly perfect, is agree to meet with this doctor and ear him out. 

~~~ 

Sunday morning brings more sunshine, but a slight chill with it more appropriate for fall than the unseasonable warm day before. Galladon and his father are sitting at the kitchen table nibbling at the cereal that pales in comparison to yesterday morning’s feast, when Brienne comes down and plops herself gracelessly in her chair opposite he father. 

“Okay, I’ll do it,” Is all she says and then proceeds to pour herself a bowlful of honey O’s. Galladon pauses with his spoon halfway up to his mouth and looks up at her, at the same time spilling the contents of his spoon all over his lap. 

“Pig,” Brienne mumbles under her breath. Galladon sticks his tongue out in response as he mops at the wet spot on his pajama pants. 

“Princess,” he adds as he throws the napkin down on the table and picks his spoon up again. 

“Brienne, what exactly are you talking about?” Their father asks, looking up at her. 

“Okay, I’ll meet with Doctor Martell and discuss the trail drug and treatment options. I’m not saying for sure I’ll go through with it yet. We’ll see how the scan goes and the test turn out. If he feels like it’s worth the risk and money, we’ll talk more.” 

Galladon listens to all of this while he continues with his breakfast. He doesn’t say a word, just continues to scoop his cereal into his mouth. When Brienne finally goes back to her own cereal though he thinks he can actually feel things-the air? The atmosphere? Relationships? Feelings?- shift and he feels likes he can actually breath for the first time in seven years. For the first time since Brienne was diagnosed with AML Galladon doesn’t feel like they are just waiting around for the inevitable to happen. They are not readying themselves for the day that Galladon graduates and she is not around to join the applause. The first birthday when she should be able to blow out her candles and jokingly make obnoxious demands because it’s her day and she’s the “princess.” That first Christmas when Galladon will have to make an excuses in order to avoid going home, because without Brienne, what’s the point? She’s the glue and without her he and his dad really don’t have anything to say to each other. 

Galladon smiles into his milk when he hears her munching away and their father try to formulate and response through his happiness, because now he doesn’t have to think about those days because with any luck at all they will be so far off that they’ll both be bickering old siblings in the nursing before any of them come to pass.


	16. Chapter 16

Dr. Oberyn Martell is sitting in his home office looking over the medical records and newest results of one his most recent patients. She is a young girl, only ten, and he is very pleased to see that the Trazitopram is working better than he ever imagined it would. Without it, he is certain she would not have made it much longer. Now, because of this drug, because of him, this young girl will most likely live much longer than anyone originally thought, barring any freak accidents that is. 

When he started this trial with this new drug a few years ago, Oberyn was not expecting these kinds of results. This new drug he had been helping develop for years with the rets if his team is not a cure, at this point Oberyn is pretty sure a cure will always be just out of reach for even the most successful of doctors and scientists. Trazitopram is, in his eyes at least, becoming a successful treatment. It attacks the cancer proteins fast, and is made even stronger by the intensive chemo it is administered with. 

Because of the way the treatment works and is administered though, it also leaves patients feeling much sicker than regular chemotherapy treatments, and causes great strain on the body. He’s been reluctant to try it on anyone younger than fifteen and anyone older than fifty. This has made the trial process much more difficult, and the numbers have been a little bit lower than he and his team originally expected. This young girl was a special case, but as he continues reading the pages before him he feels that if a body as fragile as hers can withstand the treatment and come out on the other end healthier than when she came to him, then he is surely making progress in proving to the rest of the medical community that Trazitopram is definitely a step in the right direction. Oberyn is just closing the folder and entering the patient’s blood cell count and platelet levels into his records when the phone rings. 

“Dr. Oberyn Martell.” 

“Hello Dr. Martell, this is Selwyn Tarth, I emailed you about my daughter Brienne?” Oberyn remembers the emails well, and he had been hoping that Mr. Tarth could convince his daughter to meet with him, she would be the perfect candidate for his trial. 

“Of course, Mr. Tarth. How are you? How is your daughter feeling?” 

“I was actually wondering, well Brienne really, if it’s possible to set up a meeting in the next few days to discuss a treatment plan and go over things before we made a final decision.” 

“Of course.” Oberyn smiled and his hope rose even further as he and Mr. Tarth set up a consultation for the following week. It would take a few days to go through the usual tests and blood work and work out a treatment plan, but Oberyn was so sure that a young woman as strong as her father had described her to be would be the perfect candidate for the trial and more than likely a survivor as well. Just another step forward. 

~~~ 

Brienne is sitting in her 20th Century fiction class the following Monday when her father texts her with the details about her appointment with Dr. Martell. Technically she’s not really allowed to be on her phone during class, but she’s also pretty sure that if she doesn’t respond right away her father will send out a search party just to make sure she hasn’t keeled over somewhere. 

She is just sending hit on her text assuring her father that she will be ready to go bright and early Saturday morning, when she hears someone plop down in the seat beside her. 

“I’m sorry, this seat is saved.” Brienne looks up to see just who exactly would be stealing Margery’s seat, only to be met by the sight of Jaime Lannister staring very intently at her. She isn’t quite sure what to say because he knows a little bit more about her than she ever wished he would. 

“What do you want?” 

“A seat, this one looked empty.” Brienne narrows her eyes at him, but he still doesn’t break into his usual smirk. Instead he continues to look at her, almost like he’s looking for something in particular. 

“You look tired. Have you been sleeping properly?” Brienne’s mouth drops open and she tries to formulate a response, but all that comes out are unintelligible syllabus because what the fuck?! 

“Just move Lannister, that’s Margery’s seat and you know it.” She shakes her head ta him and turns to look at the front of the classroom fully expecting him to get up and move back to his regular seat. He doesn’t though, and Brienne waits for Margery to come to her rescue. She doesn’t. Margery doesn’t even show up for the class, effectively using up her last unexcused absence not even halfway through the semester. 

Professor Stark begins to send the attendance sheet around and then begins to open up the discussion on Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Unfortunately, Jaime does not seem interested at all in this topic, and instead spends most of the class snaking peeks at her. By the time their professor dismisses the class Brienne is more than ready to escape him. As she gets up and heads for the door though, he grabs her hand. 

His grip isn’t rough or tight, but her bones have started to ache a bit in the past few days, and the pressure is enough to cause her to rip her wrist from his grip and she turns around ready to get to the bottom of his weird behavior. 

“What the fuck is your problem, Lannister?” He looks shocked at first, but then he looks down and she can see his expression change to shame when he catches her rubbing her wrist lightly where he grabbed it. 

“I’m sorry, you just…you didn’t answer my question.” He looks up at her and she thinks he is attempting to smirk, but the guilt he obviously feels still mares his face. That’s when she realizes what’s going on. Galladon just couldn’t keep his fucking mouth shut. 

“He told you, didn’t he?” 

“He just needed someone to talk to. He feels really horr-“ 

“Don’t. Don’t fucking defend him.” She wants to forget about the rest of her classes and march over to his apartment and just…just fucking slap him. How could he? 

“Okay, okay. For what’s it worth, I’m sorry I was…you know…such an ass.” Brienne snap her attention back to Jaime Lannister and she thinks she can feel the blood drain from her face because this is it, this is the pity she doesn’t want. She shakes her head at him. 

“Don’t do that either. I don’t want your pity Lannister. I didn’t ask for it and I don’t need it. The only thing I need is for you to leave me the hell alone.” She turns away from him and does exactly what she wanted to do from the moment she realized she had a traitor for a brother. She leaves Jaime in the dust and heads straight for Galladon.


	17. Chapter 17

Brienne is sitting outside of his apartment, leaning against his door and concentrating on her phone when Galladon gets back from his class of the day. At first he was happy to see that she had appeared without his having to call or anything. He had started to feel that things could be different, they could be different. As he gets closer though, he sees that even though she’s concentrating hard on her phone, she is also very, very angry. Most likely at him because, well it’s his apartment she’s camped out in front of. 

“Hey Bri, how’d you get in the build-“ 

“You’re a fucking asshole.” She looks up from her phone and turns her angry blue eyes on him. She shoves the phone in the back pocket of her skin jeans and crosses her arms across her chest. She looks up at him expectantly, but all he can think is ‘when did Brienne start wearing skinny jeans?’ “Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?” Galladon just continues to stare down at her in confusion, trying to remember the last thing he screwed up. 

“Jaime and I had a nice little chat this morning,” She continues, clearly understanding that he was still trying to wrack his brain for the reason she was so angry. Galladon winces but goes to unlock the door and lets them both inside the apartment. 

“I’m sorry, I meant to tell you about that.” He shuts the door behind them and throws his jacket and bag on the chair on his way through the living room and into the kitchen. Brienne follows him expectantly, probably waiting for a better apology. “Do you want anything to drink?” 

“That’s it?! That’s all you have to say?!” Her eyes widen even more as she continues to sate at him with her arms crossed and he reaches into the fridge for a can of pop. He stares at the can instead, wasting time opening it and taking a long gulp as he goes through a thousand different apologies in his head. 

It’s been a very long time since he’s apologized to his sister-to anyone, really- and he’s not quite sure he remembers how. The right words just don’t come to him. Which is probably why everyone says he’s going to make such a great lawyer. In court you don’t have to make apologies, just excuses. Now those, Galladon has perfected. He’s been practicing them for seven years. Brienne shakes her head. “Of course you don’t have anything to say. You never have anything to say.” 

“Brienne, why don’t you cal-“ Before Galladon can even think of finishing his sentence, Brienne is approaching him with long-held fury turning her blue eyes dangerously cold. She slaps him so hard across that he can feel the imprint of her hand, each line of her finger, burning into his cheek. 

She backs away from him, looking down at her hand like she’s terrified. She keeps walking backward until she hits the edge of the kitchen table shoved into the corner of the small room. She leans against the table, letting it take the place of the anger that held her up just minutes before. 

Galladon is still holding his burning cheek when she looks up at him and opens her mouth, probably to apologize for something he deserved in the first place. Instead, Brienne pulls out a chair and drops into it. She looks tired, like it took all her strength just to propel herself forward and slap him across the face. It was hard and it most definitely hurt, but it was nothing she couldn’t have handled if the cancer wasn't eating away at her strength. 

It sucks to see someone so strong practically waste away in front of your eyes. She used to be a star out there on the soccer field, out there she could run faster and kick harder than any of the others. Then, she couldn’t even walk to the mailbox at the end of the driveway without getting winded. 

Usually, as soon as these thoughts took root, as soon as he saw her looking sick, he made an excuse. He came up with any reason to get away, pretend she wasn’t sick, act like everything was just as it had been before. Not this time. 

He walks to the fridge and grabs another can of pop and then an icepack from the freezer. He sits down in the chair across from her and slides the can of pop in front of her. She tries to speak again, but Galladon takes over instead. 

“Feel better?” She continues to look at him, still looking sheepish and almost on the brink of tears. 

“Galladon, I’m-“ 

“No, you’re not. You shouldn’t be, anyway.” 

“Does it hurt?” She winces as he removes the icepack and he smiles at her. 

“Nah, it’s all good.” She turns her attention away from his cheek and looks him the eye, and he recognizes the hurt in those large blue eyes. The hurt that makes him realize he had done something very wrong and probably deserved much worse than just a slap in the face. 

~~~ 

Brienne loves the way her hand sounded as it landed on Galladon’s face, even if she mostly regretted it afterwards, there is still a secret part of her that will probably always relish the way it felt to finally slap her brother, to finally make him feel at least the tiniest fraction of what he had made her feel since she was diagnosed. 

She does wince when he removes the icepack and she sees the bright red mark with just the tiniest hint of her handprint still shadowed in his skin. She recovers quickly though when she remembers she’s been camped out in front of his apartment all afternoon. She doesn’t want to argue though, she’s too tired to argue anymore today. She feels good about finally hitting him, but cancer sure knows how to drag all the energy and fight out of a person. 

She settles for straightening her back and looking square in the eye. “Why’d you tell him? Of all people, Jaime Lannister?” 

“I…Brienne…He’s a dick, I know. I wish I could change that about him, but I can’t. He’s still my friend though. He’s an asshole, but he’s a good friend.” Brienne is about to ask how Lannister could possibly be so awful and such a good friend at the same time. Also, how could Galladon put up with him to begin with? 

For all that she loves Margery and cherishes their friendship though, she does have a knack for sleeping around, and managing to screw the one guy she knew Brienne had been practically in love with for months. She’d forgiven her because Margery is her friend, a friend who wiped her tears when her brother was distant, and brought ice cream over when she was feeling like crap. She was the first one Brienne told about the bet her classmate, Hyle Hunt, had made with his frat brothers over her virginity. Margery was the one who had marched over to the Sigma Alpha house and seduced Hyle Hunt to the point where she had been able to completely ruin whatever reputation he had going for him. To this day Margery still won’t admit that she had anything to do with it, but Brienne remembers the telling smirk when a picture of a naked Hyle Hunt appeared on the front page of the University newspaper the following Monday. He was curled up in a ball on the front lawn of the lawn of the Sigma Alpha house with tears leaking at the side of his eyes. 

So yeah, Margery is kind of a slut, and she has slept with Renley, but she is also Brienne’s friend, her best friend. Is Jaime Galladon’s Margery? If this is true, can she really fault Galladon for being friends with Jaime? Certainly she can still fault Jaime for all his misdeeds toward her, but she cannot fault Galladon for being friends with someone who’s a good friend, right? 

“I’m sorry Bri, I’ll talk to him about it.” 

“You don’t have-“ 

“Actually, I do. I’m your brother, I should have slugged him the first time it happened.” Galladon smiles sheepishly at her, and Brienne feels the sides of her mouth tugging upward at the first brotherly thing he’s said in a long while. She doesn’t want Jaime’s pity, but it feels nice to have her brother on her side again. It’s been a long time since she’s felt like she had a big brother. 

“That’s what I’ll do, the next time he says something I’ll….hit him or punch him or…something.” Galladon is struggling a bit with the words, but his smile stays in place. The idea of Galladon actually hitting Jaime makes her laugh out loud and soon they are both laughing so hard she thinks she even sees tears in Galladon’s eyes. They let it die out and Brienne finally opens the can of pop Galladon placed in front of her, deciding that she’d like to actually stay a while and hang out with her big brother. 

“If that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get, princess.” Brienne smiles lightly at the old nickname Galladon had teased her with as a child. 

“I should say no, that you really don’t have to, but I really want it.” They are both laughing again and Brienne feels bits and pieces of the anger and hurt rub away. The laughing and Galladon’s insistence to punching Jaime, to finally stepping up and being a goof brother, do not make up for the years she has been left out in the cold by her brother, but it’s a start. It’s a really good start.


	18. Chapter 18

Dr. Martell’s office at the premier cancer research and treatment center located in Dorne is fucking freezing. This is the only thing Brienne can focus on as she and her father sit and wait for Dr. Martell to come in with the results of her bone marrow biopsy. Well, that’s the only thing she lets herself think about as she sits there. She thinks that if her mind begins to wander to the reality of being stuck in another doctor’s office for what? The billionth time in her life? She’s pretty sure she might start to go a little bit crazy. Why is she even here again? What makes this doctor so special that he thinks he can succeed where the others failed? 

“Stop biting your fingernails, sweetheart. It’ll be fine.” Oh right, her father. She’s here for her father. She folds her hands in a tight ball in her lap and clenches them to stop herself from biting her nails down to the nub. 

“I’m fine. It’s you I’m worried about. Dad, I don’t want you to be…upset when the doctor gives his idea of the probable outcome.” Her father doesn’t tear his eye away from her, they don’t even change in the slightest. He just continues to look her straight in the eye and says just one word: “If.” Brienne huffs out an incredulous laugh and turns to face the desk just as the door behind them opens and Dr. Oberyn Martell walks in. When she met him yesterday when she came in for the biopsy she had been slightly taken aback by his good looks and charms. For an oncologist he seemed to be in pretty good spirits. 

“Good afternoon Mr. Tarth, Brienne.” He sits down in the large chair behind the desk and opens up the file he brought in with him. 

“Please, Doctor, call me Selwyn.” Dr. Martell looks up from the file and smiles warmly at her father. 

“Selwyn, then.” He shifts his gaze to Brienne and softens his smile in curiosity. They had met already, but even now Brienne feels surprised at the lack of judgment and pity in his eyes. Did it make him a better doctor? A more trustworthy one? Brienne isn’t really sure, but it does put her at ease, which is odd because she’s sitting in a doctor’s office she doesn’t want to be in, in the first place. 

“Brienne, the last time we talked you mentioned that you had already been experiencing symptoms including profuse nose bleeding, passing out, shortness of breath, extreme fatigue, and dizzy spells, correct?” Brienne hesitates before nodding her head and confirming. She feels sick, she knows she’s sick, but when he said it like that, all strung together, it sounded bad…it sounded…terminal almost. Like this is really fucking it. 

Dr. Martell doesn’t falter though, just nods his head as she answers his other questions about how she is currently feeling-okay, but tired- and if she has experienced anything new in the past few days since the biopsy- yes, but just another dizzy spell, though this time in the middle of a lecture. Doctor Martell makes notes as she answers the questions and explains her most recent spell. 

“Brienne, Selwyn, I know that you and your family have been dealing with leukemia for many years and you are both aware that as the severity of the symptoms worsens, so does the caner.” Both Brienne and her father nod their heads and the doctor continues, except this time he looks directly at her. “Brienne, your biopsy test revealed that we are again, dealing with Acute Myeloid Leukemia cells that have progressed rapidly and aggressively. I think our best plan of action at this point is to start immediately with intensive rounds of chemotherapy and the trial drug, Trazitopram.” 

Her father doesn’t even falter of hesitate when he asks the doctor, “Where do we start?” 

Doctor Martell, however, does hesitate as he drifts over to look at Brienne. Again, his eyes hold no pity or disgust, just concern. “In order for this to treatment plan to work to its full success, Brienne, I believe the best option is for you to be treated as inpatient here at the Cancer Research and Treatment Center in Dorne. 

Brienne closes her eyes as she realizes that there is no getting around this. She had hoped that she might be bale to lobby for outpatient treatment with regular visits to Dorne. Then she could have stayed in school and had some semblance of a life. Now she realizes that was a rather foolish. She could still reject this though. She could still say thanks, but no thanks and walk right out of here, back to her life at King’s Landing University and her friends. 

When Brienne opens her eyes though, she catches her dad looking at her. She can see he’s waiting for her to do just that, leave him behind. Her dad is strong, the bravest person she knows, but could he survive the loss of a child? She knows that she would be breaking his heart with her decision to not seek treatment, but she’d never really given ay thought to what it would be like to be in his shoes….afterwards. Her father shouldn’t have to lose his child. 

It’s been a long time since her mother was taken in that horrible car accident. Brienne can still feel her missing her from her life, like the happy memories she has could be even better if her mother’s face was there. She thinks this must be how her family will feel doubly when she does inevitably…go. Except, she wonders if it will be even harder for a father who only ever sacrificed for her and wanted to see her achieve her dreams, whatever those may be. 

She’s always heard that a parent should never have to bury a child, but as she looks at her father she realizes the heavy truths in those words. She looks back at Doctor Martell. 

“What’s the probable outcome, even after treatment?” 

“At this point, I would estimate a 40% chance of survival, however this could change as we start treatment and see how you react to the chemo and Trazitopram. I know you’ve have several stem cell transplants in the last few years, but-“ 

“No, no more transplants. Please.” She looks at him and widens her eyes a bit, pleading with him to understand her position. 

“I understand, and in truth I believe that anymore tries at stem cell transplant would only be a detriment to your health. For now, we can just-“ 

“I’m sorry Doctor Martell, but do you think I could have a few days to just…think about all of this?” Brienne isn’t even looking at him when she asks the question. Instead, she’s looking up and trying to the blink away the tears that have absurdly gathered in her eyes. She sort of coming to the realization that leaving behind her father-and even her brother-would really, really suck. At the same time, the process of dying sounds a hell of a lot easier than the process of trying not to die. 

~~~ 

Oberyn is looking at the girl and her father sitting across from him and he feels his professionalism starting to slip. A long time ago, after Elia’s death, he promised himself and her ghost, that he would find…something to help others who were cursed with this wretched disease. Now, he’s so close to finding something that could be a breakthrough in all his research, and though Brienne’s cancer is much more progressed than any his treated so far, she’s still a good candidate to help his research go farther. 

He needs to say something that will get her to agree, for his sake and for her father’s. He can see his own desperation reflected in Selwyn Tarth’s eyes, and he knows that as a doctor his first priority is the patient, but as a person who has lost someone to cancer he feels a need to help Selwyn too. Part of that is getting his daughter to agree to the treatment plan. He’s not sure about the other part just yet, but he’s pretty sure he’ll have to cross that bridge sooner or later in Brienne’s case. 

“Of course, but Brienne, you must know that the sooner we start the treatment the more that number improves.” 

“Yes, thank you for your time, Doctor Martell.” She doesn’t look at him when she shakes his hand, but he can hear her whisper something to her father before they walk out the door and instead of following Selwyn out the door, she shuts it and turns back to him. 

“Would you do it? If you were me, would you go through with it?” Oberyn looks up at her and blinks a few times as he tries to formulate his answer. He’s never been asked that before, he’s never even thought about it. Oberyn is always the hero, not the victim. Even when Elia was sick and pleading fro him to let her go, and he felt like a helpless victim, he wasn’t really the victim. He takes a deep breath and walks to the front of his desk and perches himself on the corner, just in front of where she has sat back down in her chair. 

He will never know what it’s like to be her, to be the sick one fighting for just another day, another breath. He does know what its like to be the one left behind though. The one that has to continue to ache even after the sickness is gone. So, he doesn’t answer for her, her answers for Selwyn and all the others like him out there, instead. 

His voice is gentle when he answers. “I would. The odds aren’t great, but you knew that even before the biopsy. I wouldn’t do it for me though. I’d do it for the people who love me. I’d do it for the person standing on the other side of that door.” With that, he nods to the door and Brienne looks back toward it as well. When she turns back around with tears in her pretty blue eyes, he knows she’s made a decision.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is later than expected! The interaction between Selwyn and Brienne was a bitch to write...I cried little, so I hope it doesn't sound melodramatic or anything.

The car ride back from Dorne is excruciatingly quiet. Brienne has spent a large majority of it staring out her window and avoiding eye contact with him. When she isn’t staring out the widow, she’s got her ear buds shoved in and is trying to feign sleep. He wants to say something. What does he say though? Does he thank her for finally going along with him? He doesn’t feel like he should have to thank for finally taking care of herself though. 

She’s agreed to Dr. Martell’s treatment plan, and the only reason they are in the car on their way back to King’s Landing and not in a hospital room starting treatment is because he promised her a week. One week to clear out her dorm room, pack, and get things straightened out with the university. He had offered to do it for her, but she had already agreed to so much he thought maybe her owed her at least this. Does he really owe her though? He had raised her to be strong, a fighter. He doesn’t understand where this attitude of hers has been coming from. He’s not even sure he recognizes this girl in the seat beside him. Surely, this is not the daughter he raised. The daughter he raised is magnificent and brave. 

He takes his eyes off the road for a fraction of a second. He glances at her and he wants to take her by the shoulders and shake her. Wants to shake her until she understands why he does what he does for her. Then, he wants to hold her as close as possible for as long as possible. He looks forward again. She is staring out the window blankly, but her ear buds are no longer in and so he clears his throat. 

“Having you, getting to know you, has been the greatest joy of my life.” Selwyn’s eyes tart to mist over and he spots a gas station just to the right, he cuts through the last lane, ignoring the honking cars around him, and pulls in. 

He can feel Brienne’s gaze before he even turns in his seat to look over at her. Her wig is in place, and mussed and matted from her attempts at sleeping, and the dark circles underneath her eyes are even more pronounced. Her mouth is hanging open slightly and he can see the confusion working itself out in her widened eyes. 

“I don’t…what?” 

“You and Galladon are the two greatest things that have ever happened to me in my life. I just…I needed you to know that. I need you to understand why it is I have pushed this so hard. And, you needed to know that if this doesn’t work, or something…something goes wrong…I needed to tell you just how lucky you make me feel to be our father.” Selwyn takes a moment to blink at the tears before he continues. Brienne is still staring at him, but her mouth has shut and she no longer looks confused. 

“I want you to understand that I love you very much, and I believe you are stronger than you think so you are going to beat this, but if…if I do lose you, you need to know that you have been the brightest spot in my life and having you for my daughter for these nineteen years has been the greatest gift I could have ever imagined.” He barely finishes his sentence before Brienne has her arms wrapped around his neck and softly whispers, 

“I love you daddy.” 

~~~ 

Brienne is sitting with Margery in the campus café, staring at her computer screen and waiting for Sansa when she catches the movement of the corner of her eye. 

“Margery, if you value your life, you’ll put my coffee back down.” Brienne looks over at her in time to catch the sheepish look Margery gives her before apologizing and putting it back down, 

“I just think-” Brienne places her hand over Margery’s and can’t help but smile at her friend’s effort. 

“It’s fine, I promise. Caffeine is 100 percent safe in moderation.” Margery raises her eyebrow and looks at Brienne skeptically. 

“You aren’t just saying that so you can carry on your addiction?” Brienne rolls her eyes and turns back to her computer and the email she is constructing to her professors about her current situation. 

“She’s right, it’s totally safe. I checked it on my new cancer app the other day.” Sansa sets her bag down and plops into the chair beside Brienne. 

“There’s a cancer app?” Brienne looks at Sansa, dipping her curly fries in a mixture of mayo and hot sauce- a sight that even on her healthiest days turns Brienne’s stomach. Sansa looks at the both of them, a fry dangling from her hand halfway to her mouth. 

“What?” She pops the fry into her mouth and washes it down with a large gulp of Mountain Dew. 

“A cancer app? Really?” Margery is the one who finally speaks, mostly because just the sight of Sansa’s dipping sause is churning her stomach, and the smell is making it very hard to breathe over the bile rising in her throat. 

“It’s cool, well as cool as a cancer app can be. It tracks symptoms and tells you all sorts of interesting facts and…” Sansa continues to talk and dip her curly fries, but Brienne can no longer hear her over the buzzing in her ear and the churning in her stomach that lets her know that if she doesn’t move fast, she is going to lose her meager lunch all over her friends. 

Her chair scrapes loudly as she pushes back from the table, and it lands with loud crack on the floor as she races to the nearest trash can. She wishes she could make it to the bathroom, but again, she isn’t that lucky. Instead she goes straight for the nearest trash can and pushes whoever is standing in front of it out of the way before she loses everything on the floor of the café. 

The next moment she feels like she is vomiting up her entire stomach, from the coffee she just drank to the few crackers she has tried to choke down for the past few days. Just when she feel like there is nothing left, she feels her stomach clench gin and she continues to dry heave, her lungs searching for air. She doesn’t hear the voices asking if she okay, and does she need anything. She feels little beads of sweat forming at the spot where her wig clings to her scalp, and her cheeks flush with exertion. 

When it’s finally over, and she can finally breathe again, Brienne comes back to the world around her. She braces her wobbly arms on either side of the trash can and hangs her head in shame, the hot tears forming like heavy weights at the bottom her eyes. Now, not only is the tall ugly sophomore, she’s slow the girl who lost her cookies in the student café. 

“Are you okay?” The voice doesn’t belong to Margery or Sansa, it’s Jaime Lannister, and suddenly she is so very away of the large masculine hand rubbing small circles on her back while he holds back her hair with his other. Brienne turns her head slowly, and stares at him. She’s too tired to be anything but surprised, but through her raged breathing she finally finds her scratchy and small voice. 

“Water, I need water.” She closes her eyes and tries to take in a deep breath as Sansa and Margery jump into action behind her, searching for a water bottle and asking her if she is okay. She wonders if she can will Jaime away if she closes her eyes tight enough and wishes with all her might. She can still feel his hand, heaving and burning on her back though, and she hangs her head again. The thick tears fall and she has never felt more ashamed in her life.


	20. Chapter 20

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Margery has asked Brienne this same question no less than fifteen times on the way back to her dorm room. It’s driving Jaime nuts so he can only imagine how thin Brienne’s patience is wearing. 

He’s not quite sure why he jumped into action in the student café. He just knows that he heard a commotion and when he turned around Brienne was hunched over a trash can and heaving. He dropped his plate full of greasy pizza and rushed over to do…something he’s still not sure what exactly, but he had settled for gathering her hair in his hand and pulling it away from her face and rubbing her back the way Cersei had once when they were kids and he had gotten food poisoning. 

Now, as he’s supporting half her weight on their trek across campus from the café, he’s wishing he hadn’t done anything. He knows he promised to be a better person, to make amends and not be an ass where Brienne is concerned, but the look she had given him when she turned her big blue eyes on him was…well it fucking sucked. He deserved it, but it sucked. He hadn’t even considered how Brienne might see his being nice to her. It never even crossed his mind that she wouldn’t accept this new side of him. 

She had accused him of pitying her. He hadn’t thought of it that way, but had he been? Is that what he’s doing? Why is he even doing it anyway? He feels bad for being an ass when she didn’t deserve it. She really didn’t fucking deserve it, and with her thin arm slung across his shoulders and her hair pulled back in a sloppy ponytail he feels very…sorry. 

“Lannister, you don’t have to do this.” Brienne looks up from where her place face is resting on his shoulder. His stomach turns again at the way her bright blue eyes stand out against her unnaturally pale face. How did not see this before? How had he missed the glaringly obvious signs that Brienne is very sick? 

“Shut up, Brienne.” His voice is soft and his eyes are gentle as he replies and tightens his hold on her waist. Looking down at the top of her head he can see that even though it’s made of real hair, these long blonde tresses aren’t her own and her own white blonde hair is peeking out slightly from underneath, just curling a bit at the ear. He’s already seen her without the wig, seen the shock of short hair that is still growing in after the last bout of chemo, but he hadn’t really grasped the situation; he wasn’t able to make the connection. They finally reach Brienne and Sansa’s room after slowly navigating the stairs and Margery asking at least three more times if Brienne is sure she’s okay. 

“I’m fine Margery. You and Sansa are going to be late for your drawing class if you don’t leave now.” Jaime helps lower her to the bed and then moves away, standing awkwardly near the door. He wants to talk with Brienne, help clear the air, show her this isn’t just pity. He doesn’t want to have this conversation in front of Sansa and Margery though, because he’s actually a little bit scared of Brienne’s friend, he’s heard the rumors and saw the picture of Hunt in the newspaper last year. Margery’s smart and pretty, but she’s also a little bit bat shit crazy. 

“Brienne, we aren’t going to leave-” 

“Yes. You two are going to class.” Brienne stares up at them from her bed. She looks weak and pale, but still resolute and stubborn. 

“Are you sure?” Sansa inquires softly. Jaime doesn’t see her brown eyes widen with fear and worry, but he can tell by the tremble in her voice that they have done just that. Jaime clears his throat and suddenly all three women turn their heads toward him. Sansa looks surprised, Margery’s eyes are filled with malice and if she could shoot death rays from them he knows she would, Brienne looks terrified. Is she scared he’s going to throw more insults at her? He’s actually not sure what he’s going to say at all, just that he needs to get Margery and Sansa out of this room in order to have a somewhat civilized conversation with Brienne. 

“I could stay. I mean that- if you want someone to stay with Brienne, I don’t have any more classes. I could do it, just until she’s feeling better?” Jaime has been looking at Sansa as he speaks, not daring to even chance a look at the other two, but as he makes his suggestion, ending it like a question more than anything else, he looks toward Margery. She snorts and rolls her eyes in reply. 

“See, I’ll be fine with Lannister.” Brienne’s voice is unyielding as she looks between Margery and Sansa. He feels a little bit of relief and the awkwardness fades slightly. He stands firmer and even smiles a little bit at Brienne. 

“But-” 

“Leave, now!” It isn’t quite a shout, bit it is definitely an order, one that Margery and Sansa are quick to heed. With their heads slightly drooped and eyes looking at their shoes as the exit the room, looking for all the world like children who have just been chastised, they mutter their goodbyes. Jaime looks at Brienne, and she stares right back at him. He is trying to come up with a place to start, racking his brain for something…anything, to say. 

~~~ 

“Just wait until a couple of minutes, just until they’re out of the building, and you can go.” Brienne takes in a calming breath and tries to steady herself, the room is doing that thing again, where it spins a little bit and she has to close her eyes and take a breath before she gets sick from the motion of it all. If this is bad, she can’t wait to start chemo, what a fun time that will be…again. 

Brienne actually lets out a short, cynical laugh at the thought of more rounds of chemo and more days like this, or more accurately, worse days than this. The days where she’s so weak she can’t even use the bathroom, yeah she’s looking forward to those the most. It’s always a proud moment when a nineteen year old wets her bed. 

“Are you…Brienne, do you need anything?” Jaime is suddenly sitting beside her, and she really just wishes he would go the fuck away. 

“Just…just leave, Lannister.” She keeps her eyes closed, terrified of the pity that will be shinning in those bright green eyes. 

“Jaime, my name is Jaime.” Brienne does open her eyes at this and looks at him, though he isn’t necessarily looking at her so much as a spot above her head. She tries to catch his eye, but he is too busy with her bookshelf above her head. Finally, she just rolls her eyes. 

“Fine, Jaime, whatever. You can go.” He finally looks back at her, and he’s smiling. He’s not smirking or leering, he’s actually smiling. Brienne has never seen him actually smile, it doesn’t look half bad on him. 

“Actually, I can’t. I promised I’d stay, and I’m staying.” 

“Only until I was feeling better, and I’m feeling fine. I really just want to sleep.” Jaime isn’t even looking at her anymore, instead he’s moving toward the sink and running a washcloth from the towel bar under the water. He rings out the excess water and orders her to lay back. 

“I-what?” Jaime presses the warm cloth to her temple and it feels so good she can’t help but sink into the pillows behind her and lay back a little bit more. Jaime sits down on the bed beside her again and turns his big green eyes on her. He takes a deep breath. 

“I’m sorry Brie-” 

“What did I tell you about the pity, Lannister?” He looks back at her, and the shinning in his eyes makes her feel a little bit guilty for raising her voice. Is he about to cry? 

“Brienne, I’m…I’m not trying to pity you…That’s not what…” He looks up toward the ceiling and blinks a few times before he takes in another breath and tries to start again. “I’m just really, really sorry, okay? And I …I know that’s not really enough. I’m an ass, and forgiveness isn’t really in the cards here, but I just…I thought I needed to say it and you…you definitely deserved to hear it.” He’s still looking at her with those green eyes, and she thinks she sees something there. She can’t name it, but it makes her stomach twist and heat soften just a bit. Is that humanity in Jaime Lannister’s eyes? 

The longer she looks the more apt she is to forgive him, and that’s kinda the last thing she wants right now. Maybe she will, eventually, one day, probably on her death bed as this rate. Right now, she really just wants to watch him squirm, really make him work for something in his life for once. She looks away and squeezes her eyes shut to try to get the look in his eyes out of her head. When she looks back at him, the look is still there. 

“You’re right, I don’t forgive you. If you insist on staying though, you can start making it up to me by reading me the pages from My Antonia that Professor stark assigned the other day.” Jaime’s face actually pales at the suggestion and Brienne actually has to fight off a triumphant smirk at his face. Instead, she tries to frown and presses her head to the washcloth on her temple, which is actually growing chilly. 

“I really understand if you’d rather not, it’d be a great relief if you did though. The room is still spinning a bit.” Jaime’s eyes widen at her well faked serious tone and he complies immediately. He grabs the book from her desk, opens up to the page she has marked and begins to read. 

“I kept as still as I could. Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen. I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep…” 

Brienne closes her eyes and lets Willa Cather’s words wash over her. She doesn’t understand why an English major like Jaime is so insistent on not reading the assigned material. For Brienne, works like this, passages like the one Jaime had just read, were meant to be read, appreciated, studied, escaped into. She let herself drift into sleep dreaming about analyzing the passage and then dreaming of ways she could continue to torture Jaime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The passage Jaime reads is form Willa Cather's "My Antonia." It's from the very end of chapter 2 and is one of my absolute favorite passages! If you haven't read the book, you totally should. It's super short and easy, you could read it in a day.


	21. Chapter 21

Galladon knows there’s been a shift in his friendship with Jaime since he told his best friend about Brienne, more specifically that pretty soon there will be no Brienne. If he says it like that, in a way that makes it sound like she’s just going away for a while, will it be easier? He feels like if the real words never cross his mind or come out of his mouth, this whole thing will be much easier to handle. 

He feels selfish and guilty for thinking of himself when Brienne is the one checking into the hospital right now, the one who is...in trouble. He told Jaime about Brienne for a reason, though. It wasn’t because he thought Jaime should know, or that he wanted Jaime to pity his sister. He told Jaime because as much as it sucks to have cancer, Galladon thinks it sucks even more to be the brother of someone who has cancer. It sucks when your blood isn’t a match, it sucks in a way that he’s not even sure he can articulate to anybody. 

People die every day. All the time, someone is losing someone they love and yet they keep moving on and breathing like they did before. How do they do that? He’d been through this with his mother, but that’s been so long ago he doesn’t remember how it goes anymore, how he’s supposed to successfully divide his life into before Brienne…left and after. He thinks that if he has his best friend to talk to, to be an outlet, and probably even let him cry when the inevitable happens, he might be okay, he’ll be able to, eventually, be a part of those who can sort their lives into before and after, and keep on going. 

That’s the hardest part of not being the once with cancer. Sooner or later, the inevitable happens and Brienne’s struggle will be over, but Galladon and everyone she leaves behind will still be here trying to find ways to go on and keep breathing. Thousands of people do it every day, people are doing it right now in this very hospital as he sits in an uncomfortable plastic chair outside of Brienne’s hospital room. If so many people are doing it, coping should be easy, right? Then, Galladon wonders, why does it feel like his own breath is being stolen straight from his lungs when he tries to think about that not so distant future? 

~~~ 

Jaime should really be in class right now. He knows he’s missed too many times as it is, and Professor Stark is probably going to fail him, but this morning when he woke up in a very empty bed that was very full the night before, he felt like maybe he could be of more use somewhere else besides dozing in 20th Century Fiction. 

So, before he even really has any idea of where he is headed or why, or having an plan at all, he found himself driving straight past the campus and getting onto the highway that would take him straight to the Dorne Cancer Treatment and Research Center. 

He and Brienne haven’t talk since that afternoon he helped her back to her dorm room and read a few pages of My Antonia before she passed out. He’s pretty much okay with that because he doesn’t know how to actually have a real conversation with her, but he’s not really going for her anyway, he’s going for Galladon. 

Jaime might not be clear on how a normal relationship works between brothers and sisters, and he knows that even Brienne’s and Galladon’s isn’t perfect, but he does know that if it were Tyrion or Cersei in that hospital today, Galladon would be there cracking jokes, talking nonsense, and basically just be there, keeping Jaime sane. He walks into the hospital and searches for Brienne’s room for Galladon, and maybe a little bit to show Brienne he really is sorry and he means it. 

~~~ 

Ellaria Sand is rightfully still a little pissed at her partner and ex, Oberyn Martell. How could he push a patient, who Ellaria had objected to, into their trial? It was a question she had been asking him since he had ordered the paperwork for Brienne Tarth and asked her to make sure everything was in order for their newest patient. He still hadn’t answered her question properly. He only gave her a cold look and told her that he was still the lead doctor on the trial study, and could she just focus on her own patients and do what he asked of her? 

No, she can’t. They are both equal partners in this trial and even though they are no longer involved romantically, she still deserves his respect and her opinion on Brienne’s case should have been taken into consideration. At the very least they should have had a conversation before he brought in another patient. Brienne’s rapidly growing cancer and exhaustion of both stem cell and bone marrow transplants make her a much riskier and possibly terminal case. 

She wants to believe that isn’t the case and that by some miracle Brienne Tarth will beat cancer’s ass, but someone on this trial has to think logically and it sure as hell isn’t going to be Oberyn. Unfortunately, that task falls to her, so instead of being the big hero like her partner, she’s the bitchy one who mostly finds herself cleaning up after him. 

“Dr. Sand, Dr. Martell wants to see you in his office.” Ellaria looks up from the charts and graphs she’s been going over and smiles at the intern standing in the doorway. 

“Thank you, Lucy.” After Lucy has left, Ellaria rolls her eyes and Oberyn’s immaturity and puts the papers she was examining back into their folders. 

She doesn’t even knock when she reaches Oberyn’s office, just opens the door and almost slams it shut behind her. He is hunched over his desk, and doesn’t even look up at the sound of the door. The anger that has started to simmer down to annoyance rears its ugly head again and she clears her throat loudly. 

~~~ 

He knew using Lucy as a messenger would piss her off, but he kind of liked her when she was angry so he went for it. Oberyn wasn’t disappointed. When he finally lifts his head from his newest batch of statistics, Ellaria is standing with her hands on her hips, hair wild from dragging her hand through it in annoyance-most likely at him- and her full lips twisted into a deep frown. 

“If you want to speak with me, Dr. Martell, you should come find me yourself. Using an intern as your personal message delivery service is high unprofessional.” Ellaria’s nose goes up even higher and he almost wants to laugh. He doesn’t though, this coldness and distance between them is getting old and if they are to remain partners on this trial they need to find a way past their childish behavior. 

“I’m sorry, Dr. Sand. I promise to remember that for next time.” Her eyes widen just slightly at the sincerity in his voice, but he can see the fight still hasn’t left her eyes. She doesn’t want their personal life to affect this trial any more than he does, but if he knows one thing about the brilliant doctor standing in front of him, it’s that she’s as stubborn as an ox. 

Ellaria does relent enough to sit down in the chair in front of his desk. She still keeps the steely look in her eyes, and her arms are crossed over her chest to protect herself from him in any way possible. 

“Brienne Tarth is starting her first round of chemotherapy this morning, I thought we should at least sit down and discuss her case a little bit more before things get started.” 

“What is there to discuss? You decided to bring a patient-one I advised and lobbied against- into our trial and risk the entire thing being compromised.” Oberyn feels his own anger and desperation start to rise at her harsh words. How could she expect him to turn away someone who needed his help? How could she herself turn her back? Isn’t this why they became doctors? To help people? To save lives? 

“Oberyn,” her voice is much softer now, and she is looking him straight in the eye with her hands firmly clasped in a ball on her lap. “I know what you think of me for wanting to say no to the Tarth girl, but you have to stop this. Brienne isn’t Elia.” 

“I know that!” 

“Then why are you pursuing this?! You’ve reviewed her history, you know how much of a risk she is to this study.” Oberyn stands and pushes his chair back so fast it almost falls to the floor as it bounces off the wall behind him. He leans his fists on the table and looks down at Ellaria, who looks up at him with a little bit of fear. 

“I’m pursuing this because it’s our job. This is what we do, Dr. Sand. We do everything in our power to help our patients. We save lives.” Oberyn doesn’t even wait for her to reply, just tells her to follow him if she still wishes to remain a valued partner on this study and walks out the door to meet with Brienne Selwyn.


	22. Chapter 22

The very first memory Brienne has of being in a hospital is the night her mother died. She doesn’t remember the ride to the hospital, or the days the followed. She does remember the doctor’s face when he came out of those large swinging doors that separated her from her mother. She can still recall the gently lilt in the doctor’s smooth voice as he relayed the news to her father in a hushed voice. Most of all, she remembers the way the big, metal chair in the waiting room engulfed her small body. The thin piece of fabric did nothing to stop the metal underneath from digging uncomfortably into her legs as she sat for hours waiting, only to be rewarded with a dead mother in the end. 

She’s thinking of that horribly uncomfortable and large chair as she sits back against the pillows in her equally uncomfortable hospital bed. She has officially been a resident at the Dorne Cancer Treatment and Research Center for just a little over six hours and she’s already starting to mildly regret this decision. Alone in this square, cold, boring hospital room Brienne feels like that little girl again. Small…and scared. She turns on the TV, flipping through channels, trying to find a reality show, maybe something with weddings? Reality TV is definitely her guilty pleasure. She’ll deny it to pretty much the whole world, but right now Brienne needs some petty drama in her life, anything to make this room feel less quiet and boring. 

Brienne is just wrapping up her second episode of Bridezillas and when the smell of dinner wafts into her room and she feels it. The slight nausea she has been feeling all day heightens, and then the unmistakable feeling of bile rising in her throat and the knowledge that there is no way to force it back down. She grabs the pan siting on the table beside her bed just in to spill her breakfast bagel into it. 

“Well, I guess I don’t have to ask how your feeling.” Brienne looks up to find her father taking off his jacket and throwing it on the back of a chair before going into the bathroom. He comes out with a warm washcloth and places it on her forehead before taking the pan from her and setting it back on the table and pressing her call button for a nurse to replace it with a new one. 

Brienne just barely leans back against her pillows before she’s reaching for the tub again. All she has left is some water and the rest comes out in dry heaves. The continues hacking causes her lungs to burn for oxygen, her head to start spinning, and her vision goes blurry with tears of shame and revulsion at her inability to keep her breakfast down; at the total loss of control. 

All the while, her father is rubbing circles on her back, and she can feel the comforting heat of his familiar hands through the soft cotton of her favorite King’s Landing University emblazoned night shirt. The exact same way he did when she was a kid and she had to stay home from school with the flu. The tears are falling now and fuck if she doesn’t wish she could be that little girl again, running into her father’s room so he could chase away the monsters under the bed. 

~~~ 

Galladon had been so sure that he could do it this time. He had been so ready to go into that room and help Brienne in any way he could. Even if all her could do was talk about his stupid law classes and hold her hair back when she got sick. Instead, he was standing outside the room, staring at the door, unable to move forward or turn back. 

Jaime had shown up just as his father was walking out of Brienne’s room to update Galladon. His father’s words were sharp and to the point, and with a brief nod to Jaime as he approached them, his father walked off. All Galladon could do in response was hang his head and accept Jaime’s offer to find a place other than the hospital cafeteria for lunch. 

“You need to go in.” Jaime doesn’t even look at him as he says this, just continues to dunk his fries and the ketchup and mustard mixture that take up half of his plate. Galladon drops his face into his hands and exhales loudly. He pushes his palms hard against his temple, trying to keep his growing headache at bay. 

“I know.” He mumbles it into his hands, but he knows Jaime has heard him because not even a second later he can hear Jaime shuffling around and when he looks up his friend is standing and throwing a couple dollar bills onto the table. 

“Let’s go then.” 

~~~ 

Selwyn has hundreds of favorite memories that feature his daughter, ones that have her laughing as he swings her through the air and into the water. He especially likes the ones where she is looking at him with adoration, those times when her eyes would go wide and his heart swelled with love when his daughter looked at him like he was a superhero. 

His absolute favorite memory though is the first moment he held her in his arms. His wife had been sitting propped up in her hospital bed and he hears her tinkling laughter as she watched him watch the small bundle in his arms. This wasn’t his first child, but this was his first daughter. He looked down at her in awe as she rested peacefully in his arms and he rubbed small circles on her tiny back with his thumb. When she opened her bug blue eyes and smiled at him he was gone. 

Nineteen years later he is rubbing her back soothingly in another hospital room, but when she looks up at him her eyes are clouded with tears and fear. He is no longer her superhero. Instead, he is a man grasping at long-shot treatments and anything that might just…just restore that brightness in her eyes. 

“I think…I think I’m good.” Brienne presses the washcloth to her forehead again and leans back against the pillows. The dark circles around her eyes have deepened. Her normally pale skin has become even starker against the dark red of her pajamas and cause her freckles to draw more attention to themselves. This is the fastest the treatment has ever kicked in, and Selwyn can’t help but hope that this means it’s really working. 

The nurse comes to replace the tub with a new one and smiles down at Brienne as she checks his daughter’s IV and tells Brienne some old wives tales tricks to help with her nausea, but still promises to tell Dr. Martell to up her dosage of the nausea medication. The nurse smiles at them once more before she leaves the room, but Selwyn can see the pity in the nurse’s eyes. 

“Why don’t you just try and sleep? Maybe you’ll be up to eating something in a bit.” Brienne’s face almost turns green when he mentions food, but she just closes her eyes tightly, nods her head, and cocoons herself into the pile of pillows and blankets she has brought with her. Selwyn sits down in the chair next to her bed and watches her before nodding off as well. 

~~~ 

“Just go in.” Jaime and Galladon are both standing in front of Brienne’s room again. The door is closed and they have been staring at it for at least ten minutes. This is not exactly going the way Jaime planned. Well, he never actually had a plan to begin with, but he never thought Galladon would still refuse to go into the room. 

“What are you actually afraid is going to happen if you go in there?” Galladon doesn’t turn to look at him, he doesn’t even blink. He just continues to stare at the closed door with his arms across his chest and rocking back and forth on his heels. 

“I don’t know, man. I just…it’s fucking scary.” Jaime lifts an eyebrow in confusion, trying to figure out how this seems to be scarier for Galladon than for Brienne. His friend still remains in the same position, staring and rocking back and forth, not even attempting to elaborate on his confusing reasoning. 

Instead of trying to get more out of Galladon, Jaime takes another approach instead and hopes Galladon will follow his lead. “Fine, you stay out here, but I’m gonna go in and at least say hi, maybe try and score some weed or something. Cancer patients get that all the time don’t they?” Jaime doesn’t even look back as he starts toward the door, just wishing that this will work. Maybe Galladon needs someone to go in first, a little buffer of sorts. 

Jaime knocks on the door, and he thinks he hears a muffled yes, so he opens the door and walks right in. Selwyn is sitting passed out in the chair next to Brienne’s bed. He looks over at Brienne, and his heart drops and his stomach churns uncomfortably at the sight. Brienne’s skin is so pale he thinks he might be able to see through it soon. The bags he started to notice under her eyes a few weeks ago are even more prominent and sickly looking now. She has abandoned her wig, and her natural hair is so blond it almost seems just as white as her skin. 

The worst part is that her beautiful blue eyes, which have been trained on him since he walked in the room, are no longer bright. Brienne looks small and so sick, and he feels…sad. He feels guilty for treating her like crap, but this new sadness is something different. It shakes him to the core, and he thinks he might understand slightly what Galladon meant when he said coming into the room was scary. 

“Can I help you, Lannister?” Jaime snaps his eyes back to hers, and his stomach churns again when he finds dull eyes again instead of the bright blue ones he’s used to. 

“I just, uh…Galladon. He, uh, he wanted to-” 

“Hey, Brie.” Galladon has appeared at Jaime’s side and saved him from his own foolish stuttering. Brienne doesn’t smile when she turns her eyes to Galladon, and Jaime sees that this might take more time to mend than he originally thought. 

“Well, look who finally decided to show up. If you’re planning on just sitting in the corner again Galladon, then you can leave. I really don’t need-” Brienne cuts herself off by pressing her hand to her mouth and closing her eyes tightly. She takes a breath and tries to continue, but she quickly grabs the plastic tub sitting on the table by her bed and proceeds to hurl into it. Jaime turns to Galladon, expecting him to jump into action and shoe his sister that he intends to change. 

Galladon is just staring at her though, wide eyed and even inching toward the door just the tiniest bit. Before he can even give any real though to it, Jaime is jumping into action himself. He sits on the bed next to Brienne and pushes back the hair that is falling into her eyes. Then he takes the bucket from her hands and holds it himself when he notice her hands trembling. The longer Brienne heaves, and the longer he listens to her ragged breathing in between the bouts of gagging, the angrier he gets at Galladon standing around instead of helping his own sister. Galladon is his best friend, but who just watches their sister puke her guts out and not even try to help?


	23. Chapter 23

“I don’t know, Brienne. Are you sure?” Sansa was sitting across from Brienne in her room. She was staying with Brienne for the weekend, and they had been playing their third round of War when Brienne blurted out that she wanted help shaving her hair. Now, the cards lay abandoned on the tray between them and Brienne is staring at Sansa. “I mean, that’s a big step Brie. Don’t you want to think you should think about it for like, a second or two?” 

Brienne rolls her eyes. “I have thought about, Sansa. If I think any longer, it’s going to start falling out in chunks, and trust me that’s no pretty. I know, I’ve been there.” Brienne’s mouth quirks up the tiniest bit at the corner at her own little joke. Sansa, however, does not feel amused when she remembers the first time Brienne’s hair started to fall out during chemo. Brienne’s white blond hair had once been so long it almost made its way down to her waist. Brienne had never been into all the girly things Sansa was always obsessed with when they were younger, but she had always had the most beautiful long hair. She can still see her best friend’s chin tremble and the relentless tears that had lasted for weeks when the chemo had really set in and her hair began to come out by the handful. 

Sansa’s frown deepens and Brienne’s eyes lighten a little bit, an unspoken apology for the tiny joke in poor taste. Sansa lets out a puff of air and holds out a hand for the razor Brienne has pulled out of the drawer form her bedside table. “Fine, hand it over.” 

The short locks of hair come of fast and easy. Neither of them speak as Sansa guides the whirring clippers over Brienne’s scalp. This is the first time Brienne has beaten the cancer to the punch and taken her hair before it can take it from her. Sansa isn’t sure what this means. Is this Brienne fighting, or is this Brienne resigning to her fate? 

When she is done, Sansa brushes lightly at the soft skin of Brienne’s head, making sure she has gotten all of it, and tells her to take a look in the mirror. Sansa takes Brienne’s previous seat on the closed lid of the toilet and watches her friend rub her hand softly over her newly shaven head. She watches as Brienne leans her hands on the small sink and tilts her head back and forth. She still can’t decide what this means. Sansa studies her profile as Brienne continues to study her own reflection. She can see the way her blue eyes droop at the corners, and her lips curve even farther down. Before her chin can begin to tremble Sansa gets up, squeezes Brienne’s arms and leans her against her shoulder. Then she smiles the biggest smile she can muster through her own tight throat. 

“Well, I guess that’s that then.” Brienne’s own lips try to curve into a smile of their own, but they don’t quiet make it. Sansa thinks that’s okay though, she can smile for the both of them. She’ll smile until her bloody lips go numb and her face gets that stuck that way if it means that Brienne keeps attempting her own. As long as she’s trying, Sansa knows she’s still fighting. 

~~~ 

“The Book Thief, sounds interesting. What’s it about?” Ellaria takes note of the new book Brienne has nose buried in as she enters the room to take note of the girl’s progress as she takes a break from her chemo. It’s a short break, and she can tell that the young woman is still reeling, but at least she’s finally eaten everything on her tray, barring the mushy green mess Ellaria thinks are green beans. 

“Death.” Brienne lifts her eyes from the pages for moment to look at Ellaria and answer her question shortly and she wishes she hadn’t asked. How could a book with a skeleton dancing on the front cover be about anything else? Brienne smiles and even chuckles a little bit and then elaborates. 

“Well, Death is the narrator. Mostly, it’s about a young girl living through the Holocaust who loves to read. Unfortunately for her, there’s also a lot of death. I’m only halfway through though. Who knows, maybe she’ll be the one to live.” The next thing that happens surprises even Ellarai. 

“Will you read some of it to me?” Brienne’s eyebrows shoot up at this, an even Ellarai can feel her eyes go a bit wide at her own request, but she sits down on the bed, lays her charts down on the table and waits for Brienne to begin. 

“Uh, sure.” She clears her throat a bit and then flips the pages back to the start and begins to read. “First the colours. Then the humans. That’s usually how I see things. Or at least how I try. Here is a small fact: You are going to die. I am in all truthfulness attempting to be cheerful about this whole topic, though most people find themselves hindered in believing me, no matter my protestations. Please, trust me. I most definitely can be cheerful. I can be amiable. Agreeable. Affable. And that’s only the As. Just don’t ask me to be nice. Nice has nothing to do with me. Reaction to the aforementioned fact: Does this worry you? I urge you-don’t be afraid. I’m nothing if not fair…” 

Brienne goes on for a few more chapters and Ellaria stays riveted, needing to know exactly what is going to happen to this book thief. When her voice gets to raw and her eyes start to become heavy, Brienne offers to let Ellaria borrow the book. She declines at first, insisting he doesn’t have the time, but when Brienne insists, she can’t help herself and agrees. 

Ellaria still doesn’t like how Oberyn handled the Tarth case, going behind her back and making the family feel like there is more hope for the young girl than there really is. She has, however, begun to see why Oberyn has become so invested in this case. Brienne Tarth is quiet, shy, and to most she would seem exceedingly unremarkable. Just another face in the crowd. 

There’s something else though. Ellaria thinks it’s probably not something most of the world sees, but she knows that the friends and family that are always in that room must see what she has begun to take note of. Brienne is strong. She can see the places where the hard muscle athletic muscle has lost its strength from years of being laid up in one hospital bed after another. The power Ellaria sees though is much deeper, and that look in Brienne’s eyes is what breaks her heart a little bit because Ellaria still doesn’t believe all the strength and drugs in the world can save this poor girl on the cusp of life. 

As an oncologist, a doctor, she’s seen her fair share of deaths, lost patients that should have had years left. She’ always prided herself on not getting involved though. She’s compassionate, and she cares for her patients, but taking those to heart is not something she does. Death happens, and it’s sad, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes. Oberyn ha always been her exact opposite in this, and his risky involvement is what ultimately drove them apart. She doesn’t think borrowing a book from a patient is the same as getting too emotionally invested, but she’s definitely sure it’s crossing a line she promised never even to toe. 

~~~ 

Jaime hasn’t been with Cersei since that afternoon he helped Brienne back to her room and tried to apologize. In truth, he’d been a little preoccupied with everything else to make her his main priority. He had promised to stop fucking her, after all. She still remained in the back of his mind though, and his cock most definitely wouldn’t let him forget her completely. 

After he had visited Galladon, which had been a total failure and ended with him practically dragging his best friend back into the waiting room, he had gone straight to her apartment and fucked his sister until he forgot the way Brienne had looked in that bed, and the way Galladon had stood paralyzed in the doorway and watched her get sick without even lifting a finger to help. 

He hadn’t even thought about it when he left the hospital in a daze, in fact he doesn’t even remember the drive at all. He just remembers ending up on Cersei’s doorstep and then taking her hard enough to leave bruises she would later scold him for. He had tried to feel bad about it, going back on his promise and such, but there something right in the way she made him feel whole. He had returned to his own bed later that night and fallen asleep feeling peaceful, but he’d woken after another terrible dream where he was forced to watch from the sidelines as Brienne fell to her death. The gnawing guilt in the pit of his stomach left him unable to sleep, and stayed with him the rest of the week. 

Now, a week later he has decided he’s done holing himself up in his apartment, only leaving for classes. Every time he closes his eyes and tries to drift into a dreamless sleep, he’s haunted by those stupid blue eyes and the horrible sound of Brienne retching and trying for small gulps of air in between. It hadn’t been pretty, but he had smoothed her hair back and laid her gently back against the pillows when she was finished, and then promptly got up and dragged Galladon out of the room. 

In that moment, he had been too irritated at his best friend to even ask what had happened in there, but he had made sure he was okay before he left. Jaime needs to say something to him, because he thinks Galladon is even more screwed up than he originally thought. First and foremost though, he grabs his car keys, intending to do something about the guilt that has started to make him feel slightly nauseous.


	24. Chapter 24

At the top of her list for reasons to hate caner, Brienne ranks the fact that she can’t go outside or play soccer at the very top. Probably just below the fact that it’s going to kill her, eventually. She can still watch the world going on outside her little hospital window, but that got old about a week ago. Now, she’s back in bed, watching her third Judge Judy episode of the day.

“Haven’t we seen this one already?” Loras comes breezing with a greasy paper bag in hand that can only contain a large order of sweet potato fries.

“Probably.” Brienne turns her eyes back to the TV, trying to take her mind off of the smell coming from the bag in Loras’s hand. Some people don’t get the nausea with the chemo, unfortunately, Brienne is not one of those people. In fact, it seems to be heightened with this fancy new drug of theirs.

“Yeah, this is the one with that crazy lady from Braavos, and she’s all upset because her ex stole…” Loras’s voice drifts farther away as a buzz takes up residence in her ears and she has to take deep even breaths to steady the churning in her stomach.

“Loras,” she cuts him off. “I love you, and I love sweet potato fries, but you gotta get those out of here.” Loras looks away from the TV and his eyes widen at Brienne, her eyes swimming and her hand clamped over her mouth. He hurries out of the room with the paper bag, muttering fuck under his breath as he goes and come back looking guilty and apologetic.

“Sorry, Brie. I just thought…its Thursday.” Loras stands at the foot of her bed, with his hands shoved into his pockets, his head bowed slightly, and little curls falling in his eyes. Brienne gives him a weak smile, and pats the spot next to her on the bed.

“It’s fine, I miss sweet potato fry Thursdays too.” Loras manages a small grin, and they both settle in to finish what’s left of the Judge Judy marathon. They don’t get very far before Margery comes bursting into the room, large overnight bag on one shoulder and sporting an excited grin.

“Brie, you never told me there were so many attractive doctors here.” Brienne and Loras roll their eyes in unison.

“I thought you were done with doctors, Marg.” Brienne quirks an eyebrow in her direction, and Margery shrugs her shoulders.

“Well, maybe I was a little hasty in the decision. Anyway, I’m here for girl time! And don’t roll your eyes at me, Brie.”

~~~

A few hours later, Loras is snoring lightly in the chair beside Brienne’s bed, and Margery is bent over her friend’s hand, painting her small, chipped nails a vibrant purple color.

“You really don’t have to do this, Margery.” Brienne’s voice is quiet and Margery doesn’t understand the sudden heaviness to it.

“I _want_ to do this Brienne. Besides, maybe keeping polish on them might keep them out of your mouth.” Margery doesn’t even look up from her work as she responds, just keeps running the small brush over the nails.

“I’m not talking about the nail polish, Marg. I’m talking about you and Sansa and Loras taking every other weekend to come all the way to Dorne just to keep me company.” Margery stiffens and looks up at her then. She’s not exactly sure what to say because of course she has to do this. And she doesn’t do it for Brienne, not really. She does it for herself. She comes every other weekend because she needs her best friend, and she’s terrified that the second she bats and eye, Brienne will have slipped away and Margery will have missed it all.

Margery doesn’t explain this to Brienne. Instead, she smiles up at her friend and tries to roll her eyes playfully. “I want to do that too, Brie. We all do. Just…just let us be with you, okay?” She isn’t looking at Brienne when she asks. Instead, she has picked up with the finger she left off on, concentrating on the nail polish and keeping the tiniest bit of tears that have started to prickle at the corners of her eyes. “Besides,” she looks up and smiles again. “If we don’t come hang out, you’ll be stuck with your father and Judge Judy for company, so don’t try to get rid of us too soon.” Brienne chuckles and agrees that they are much better company, even if Loras does snore.

Brienne falls asleep shortly after Margery finishes with her nails. It’s only just after nine, the cot set up for her in Brienne’s room is uncomfortable, and Loras left twenty minutes ago. Margery is sufficiently bored. Normally, she’d just resort to waking Brienne up and persuade her to go out or watch a trashy teen movie.

She stares at the ceiling instead and hopes that someday things will be normal again. She tries to picture it in fact. She closes her eyes and tries to picture a world where she, Brienne, and Sansa are graduating from university, then they’re all getting married and having kids. Lastly, they’re old women and sitting in a garden somewhere, laughing. Through it all they’re still friends, friends forever. Margery rolls over and faces the wall, eyes still closed, but dripping slightly. She smiles as she lets the fantasy lull her into a sleep that’s filled with dreams that don’t have such a happy ending.

~~~

“I’m not quite sure what you’re looking for, Jaime.” Tyrion looks across the kitchen table at him. He had come here to seek guidance from his little brother, and spilt the whole story to him, hoping Tyrion would have some piece of guiding advice for him. Jaime drags his hand through his hair and pulls at it lightly in frustration. Usually, Tyrion has the answers. The fast that his absurdly smart younger brother has nothing to offer him in his time of need is causing a slight headache, and his guilt has started to cause his stomach to start turning over on itself.

“Help, Tyrion. I came here for your help.”

“I understand that, Jaime. What I don’t understand is how exactly I can help you.” Jaime throws his hands up when he responds.

“I just…what do I do?”

“Stop fucking our sister?” Jaime narrows his eyes and pushes his chair back so hard it cracks against the wall behind him, he doesn’t even say anything, just turns to go.

“Jaime, Wait.” Jaime doesn’t turn around, afraid he’ll say something he regrets. He does stop though because…well its Tyrion and Jaime still needs help.

“You’ve apologized. That’s all you can do, really.” Jaime turns and sags against the doorframe, sliding down until he hits the cold tiled floor.

“Maybe if I go see her-”

“Brother, you can’t make her forgive you. You’ve done right by her by apologizing.” Tyrion hops off his chair and comes to lean against the opposite side of the doorframe. “As far as going to see her again, well my best advice is don’t.” Tyrion holds up his hand when Jaime begins to protest. “Unless Galladon asks you to go with him, stay out of it. Just…Jaime, just let her be with her friends and family right now. I think that’s the best way to apologize. Let her be at peace as much as possible”

Jaime closes his eyes and leans his head back. He lets Tyrion’s advice sink in, hoping it will quench the fear and guilt. It helps his stomach calm down, but there is still a lingering feeling of something in the back of his mind. The nagging feeling follows him the rest of the night, and into the following Monday when he looks up in their shared 20th Century Fiction class every few minutes to look at her absent seat. By the end of the class he’s made his decision and he’s in his car and headed to Dorne before he can let Tyrion’s advice talk him out of it.

By the time he reached her room, Jaime was starting to rethink his somewhat horrible decision. He almost turned to go the second he found himself outside her room but her voice was floating through the open door, and he leaned against the wall and listened intently.

“A book floated down the Amper River. A boy jumped in, caught up to it and held it in his right hand. He grinned. He stood waist-deep in the icy, Decemberish water. ‘How about a kiss, _Saumenshc?_ ’ he said. The surrounding air was a lovely, gorgeous, nauseating cold, not to mention the concrete ache of the water, thickening from his toes to his hips. How about a kiss? How about a kiss? Poor Rudy.

**A small announcement about Rudy Steiner: He didn’t deserve to die the way he did.**

In your visions you see the sloppy edges of paper still stuck to his fingers. You see a shivering blond fringe. Preemptively, you conclude, as I would, that Rudy died that very same day, of hypothermia. He did not. Recollections like those merely remind me that he was not deserving of the fate that met him a little under two years later.

On many counts, taking a boy like Rudy was robbery-so much life, so much to live for- yet somehow, I’m certain he would have loved to see the frightening rubble and the swelling of the sky on the night he passed away. He’d have cried and turned and smiled if only he could have seen the book thief on her hands and knees, next to his lifeless body. He’d have been glad to witness her kissing is dusty, bomb-hit lips.

Yes, I know it. In the darkness of my dark-beating heart, I know. He’d have loved it all right. You see? Even death has a heart”

Jaime’s eyes open abruptly when Brienne’s voice stops and another picks up. This one is talking about numbers and treatments and asking how she feels, definitely a doctor. Jaime waits a bit longer, waiting for the doctor to leave and psyching himself up to enter the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last bit of Dialogue is Brienne reading from the Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Chapter: The Floating Book (Part 1) pages 251-252.


	25. Chapter 25

“Hey, you shaved your head.” Brienne looks up from her book, and her eyes widen when she spots him standing at the foot of her bed. He’s suddenly wishing he had a much better opening than that, or that he hadn’t come at all, because he doesn’t actually know what he’s doing here. He had hoped it would stop the guilt and shame that sometimes had bile rising in the back of his throat. Right now though, with the way those astonishing blue eyes are staring at him, he thinks the guilt has only increased.

“What do you want, Lannister?” He wishes she sounded angry or irritated, but she sounds exhausted. He also realizes why her eyes are even brighter than usual, her skin is almost translucent, and he can spot veins showing through in web-like patterns. Before he can answer her, a nurse comes in carrying a tray full of food. Brienne’s face drains further, and her eyes close tightly as she quickly clasps a hand over her mouth.

The nurse catches the look as well, and Jaime sees a look of pity cross her face as she looks down at Brienne. “Sweetie, are you sure you don’t want to try at least a little bit today?” Brienne shakes her head vehemently, and the nurse rubs her hand reassuringly over Brienne’s shoulder before taking the tray out of the room.

Jaime moves from the end of the bed to grab the tub sitting on the nightstand and sits down next to Brienne. He still can’t come up with anything to say, so instead he rubs her back the way he did when that day in the university café. She grips the sides of the tub tightly, but after a few deep breaths it seems as if the feeling has passed and she looks back up at him. She lays back against the large pile of pillows littering her bed and crosses her arms. She looks like she’s expecting him to say something, so he says the first thing that pops into his mind.

“So, you’re sick a lot.” Even as the words are coming out of his mouth, he realizes how horrific they sound. The look she gives him right after he says it makes him want to die. Her mouth hangs open, probably in shock at his stupidity, and her blue eyes look absolutely perplexed.

Brienne rolls her eyes and answers him anyway. “I…yeah, that’s the beauty of chemo, I’m sicker now than when I came in.”

Jaime doesn’t even think, and sits down on the end of the bed. “That sucks, I’d have just stuck with the cancer, seems like less work.” In his mind this was funny, but again, he doesn’t think too much before he speaks and he believe he’s found himself with two feet in his mouth now, until suddenly Brienne is laughing. Her eyes are closed tight and she’s laughing uncontrollably. Her laugh is melodic. The sound doesn’t seem to fit the overly tall young woman who look as if she’s on her deathbed, but he finds that it stops the guilt and shame from making his stomach turn over and over. It’s not a bad sound at all and he hopes he gets to hear it again.

“That is…terrifyingly accurate, Lannister.” She says when she’s done laughing. She’s still smiling at him, and even though she still looks exhausted and she’s probably still nauseous, at least she doesn’t look like she wants to rip him to pieces anymore. “So, what are you doing here Lannister?”

“I…honestly? I don’t really know. I still…saying sorry wasn’t enough.” Her smile lessens a bit, and she rolls her eye at him. She tilts her head to side a bit and looks as if she’s studying him, trying to work out what to say.

“Jaime, I know I said I didn’t forgive you, and if I weren’t so tired I really wouldn’t. I’m too exhausted for this though. I don’t have the energy to hold grudges. You’re off the hook.” She lifts her mouth a little at the side and shrugs her shoulders.

“That’s uh….not exactly what I was expecting.” Brienne chuckles a bit and looks at him with a question in her big blue eyes.

“And what exactly were you expecting, Lannister?” Jaime smiles and shrugs his shoulders.

“I don’t know…yelling, anger, to be forced into servitude? All of the above?” She laughs again, the melody still the same, but the energy almost completely drained from it. This time it’s almost sad to hear without the enthusiasm behind it.

“I’m sorry to disappoint, but like I said, I don’t have enough energy left over to hold a grudge.”

“Maybe when you get back to school you can-”

“Jaime,” she pity in her voice stops him cold in his tracks. How can someone lying in a hospital bed, receiving intense rounds of chemo therapy, be able to pity anyone? “It’s fine, just let it go.” The look in her eyes scares him a little bit. He’s suddenly aware that without her even telling him, she’s let him in on a secret nobody else has been privy too. Brienne doesn’t believe there is going to be an afterwards. He doesn’t anything else about it, jut clears his throat and changes the subject. They talk and joke and laugh for another couple of hours, until her eyes start to droop and she pulls the blankets closer. He gets up to leave, but her voice stops him.

“Jaime,” she sounds so far way and tiny. “Will you read to me for a bit, just until I fall asleep?” He let out a breath of air, a sad chuckle at how childish she sounds.

“I think you’re already asleep, Brienne.”

“Please.” She doesn’t even open her eyes, and she’ll probably be asleep before he can even get the book open, but he sits down on the chair beside her bed and picks up the book sitting on the nightstand.

“It was a year for the ages, like 79, like 1346, to name just a few. Forget the scythe, God damn it, I needed a broom or a mop. And I needed a holiday.

**A Small Piece of Truth:**

**I do not carry a sickle or a scythe. I only wear a hooded black robe when it’s cold. And I don’t have those skull-like facial features you seem to enjoy pinning on me from a distance. You want to know what I**

**truly look like? I’ll help you out. Find yourself a mirror while I continue.**

I actually feel quite self-indulgent at the moment, telling you all about me, me, me. My travels, what _I_ saw in ’42. On the other hand, you’re a human-you should understand self-obsession…”

Jaime goes on for another couple of pages, and when he looks up, Brienne is drawing deep even breaths, fast asleep. He places his hand over hers and rubs his thumb over the rough, sallow skin. It is

supposed to comfort him, help the ice running through his blood to warm up. It doesn’t, so he puts the book down and leaves the room, hoping to leave the feeling there as well.

~~~

The day after Jaime came to visit her Brienne wakes up feeling like her body is on fire, but there still aren’t enough blankets piled on her bed to keep her warm. She can’t even lift a finger to press the call button, every joint and bone in her body aches and the pain makes her want to scream. She can’t though, all she can manage is a broken sob, and in the next moment her father is looking down at her. His face is white and his eyes look frantic as he tell her it’s okay, and then runs from the room.

There’s so much pain. Pain that she didn’t even know was possible, and she can feel her tears mixing with the blood that is starting to run from her nose. Her sobs get louder, and she thinks this has got to be the end, and what a crappy way to go. She’s going through all of the ways that this last moment could be better when a couple of doctors rush in followed by her father, and they’re pushing things at her nose to stop the bleeding and asking her to rate her pain. All she can do is cry harder, and then there’s a tiny prick in her am and the pain starts to slacken as her vision begins to go blurry at the edges and then go completely dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The book that Jaime is reading from is The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, chap: Death's Diary: 1942, pg: 317.


	26. Chapter 26

“How are you feeling?” Galladon is looking down at her. She hasn’t seen him since her first day in the hospital. He looks like hell. Brienne is secretly pleased. She tries to lift her head, but it feels too heavy and big. She closes her eyes and asks for water. Galladon is able to help her get a few gulps down before she feels the fatigue pull her back into a deep sleep. The next time she wakes up there is a warm pressure clinging to her hand and she’s able to turn her head just enough to see her father asleep in the chair next to her, his hand holding hers.

“Are you awake?” Brienne turns her head to the opposite side and finds Galladon sitting up on the cot set up for overnight visitors. His blond curls sticking up at odd angles. She watches as he gets up and walks over to the side of the bed. “Do you need more water?” She nods her head and he pours a glass full, and tries to bring the cup to her lips. She shakes her head and pulls herself up to a somewhat sitting position. She can hold her own damn cup of water. She watches him over the edge of her glass and his cheeks redden a little.

“It was an infection. You’ve been in and out for days. They think they got it though…yay doctors.” He chuckles a little, but he looks completely uncomfortable, his eyes darting everywhere but her own and finally settling on the IV standing just over her left shoulder. She doesn’t say anything, just continues to stare at him as she finishes the last of the water in her cup. Even if she wanted to talk to him, she has no idea what she would say.

His cheeks grow redder the longer she stares at him and the silence stretches on. His mouth opens and closes a few times, and when he finally looks down at her, his eyed red and watery, he still doesn’t have much to say.

“I’m a wreck, Brie.” She really wishes she could scoff at him. He’s a wreck?! She’s lying in a hospital bed and _he’s_ a wreck?! What the hell does that even mean? Is she supposed to feel sorry for him? She doesn’t say these things though, just sets her mouth into a hard line and turns her back on him, a gesture he should be familiar with.

~~~

He hasn’t attended class in three weeks. He has numerous unanswered emails from his professors sitting in his inbox, all asking where he is, what exactly his prolonged absence means for his place in the program, and doesn’t he know how many people covet such a spot in the acclaimed King’s Landing Law School?

For the record, Galladon is very aware of what all of this means, he just doesn’t really care. In fact, the only thing he’s cared about for the past few weeks is how many drinks he can down at the local bar and still drive home without killing someone. It’s a lot, by the way. It wasn’t at first, but he’s building up a great tolerance. In fact, at this rate he may die of liver failure before his sister manages to kick the bucket. Secretly, he wishes he would.

He had been sleeping off his latest night out when his father called him on Tuesday morning, panicked and out of breath. Galladon was certain this was it. The end that had been so close for so long, and he’d hung up then and there and barely made it to the toilet before he got sick. He’s been at the hospital ever since, taking over whenever their father needs a break.

He sits back down on the cot after Brienne rolls away from him. He’s not stupid. Galladon knows he has a lot to make up for, and not a whole lot of time to do it in, and it’s terrifying to think that all of this will end before he can make things right with Brienne. Dragging his hand through his hair a few times he tries to come up with something to say. Anything at all would do at this point, but he’s searching for something that will start to mend a void that’s so large he’s not sure there are enough words in the human language to fix it.

“Brienne, I’m…”

“I’m tired, Galladon. Just go to bed.” She doesn’t turn around, and her voice never softens or wavers. He does as she’s requested, but he doesn’t sleep. Instead, he prays to every higher being that’s ever existed to give him the right thing to say, or to simply go back to the very beginning and be a braver person. When he finally does drift off, it’s with tears in his eyes and a helpless prayer on his lips.

~~~

“I told you this was too risky.” Ellaria is standing behind him, probably with arms crossed and hard look in her eyes telling him everything she can’t say: _‘I told you so.’_

“It was an infection, Ellaria. Cancer patients are prone to infections, you know that.” Oberyn continues to stare out the window as he speaks, refusing to turn around and address the failure that is surely written all over her face.

“It wasn’t just an infection, Oberyn. You saw how fast and high her temperature spiked. This is just the beginning. Next time it will be worse, and have you even talked to any of them about the possibility of acute renal failure in patients-”

“They know the risks of the medication.” This time he does turn around, his anger at her doubt in his ability to do his job distracting him from the sense of failure he feels. When he sees her though, she doesn’t look hard and angry. Her eyes look red and tired. Her hair is falling out in little wisps from the tight ponytail that sits high on her head.

“I know you’ve gone over the risks of the medication, Oberyn.” Her voice is soft as she sigh and continues. “But have you talked with them about the possibility of a transplant and the red tape involved with trying to get a patient like Brienne on the list?”

“She’s a good person.” Oberyn almost collapses into the soft leather chair behind him. He hangs his head and rubs stiffly at his temple, trying to calm the raging ache taking up residence behind his eyes.

“I know, but don’t you think we should…Oberyn, she doesn’t want to spend whatever time she has left cooped up in a hospital having several different kinds medicines forced down her throat every day. Maybe it’s time to just…at least discuss the idea of going home with her.” Ellaria leaves before he can ask her how it is she can give up so easily on someone who clearly needs their help.


	27. Chapter 27

“You should go before Margery and Sansa get here.” Jaime is sitting on the bed behind her, but Brienne cannot tear her eyes away from the window and the scene playing out before her. Just below the window, down on the little lawn and play area set up for the patients who are actually well enough to go outside, are two little girls running round and round. Brienne leans her throbbing head against the cool glass and wishes she could join them. How long has she been cooped up in this tiny little room? Too fucking long, she thinks.

“Why? Scared they’ll find out about our secret friendship?” She can hear the smirk in his voice even from across the room and her mouth quirks up just the tiniest bit at the corner. She snorts a bit at his remark though.

“We’re not friends. Jaime.” She doesn’t even have to look away from the window to see his expression sour.

“Then what are we, Brienne? You’re finally calling me by my first name. That has to mean something good.” When she finally does turn around, he’s smiling at her like he’s finally outsmarted her.

“It means I no longer fantasize about seeing you run over by a bus.”

“I’m touched, Brienne, really.” Jaime holds a hand to his chest, right over his heart, and smiles playfully at her. She rolls her eyes in response.

“Why exactly are you here again?”

Jaime doesn’t answer the question, just clears his throat and asks how she’s feeling and insists she sit down before she passes and he has to drag her large body back into the bed. Brienne feels like she should push the subject farther. It had definitely been a surprise when Jaime walked into her room a little over an hour ago with a book bag filled with textbooks and claiming the he desperately needed her help. They have yet to crack open a single book.

She’s happy to have his company though, and she’s scared that pressing any further will end with him leaving her to rot in this horrible room all by herself until her other friends show up with fake smiles and sad eyes. She’ll never tell him, but Brienne actually likes hanging out with Jaime, even considers him a friend. This is really only the second time they’ve hung out alone, but he’s…real. He doesn’t make her feel like she’s about to kick the bucket any second. He’s just Jaime and Brienne appreciates the hell out of him for that. She will never ever say this to him out loud, but she kinda considers him a friend at this point. He’s…grown on her, she supposes.

She settles herself back on the bed and Jaime sits down in the recliner next to her, laying back and stretching his legs to prop his feet up on the bed next to her. Brienne rolls her eyes again and he chuckles.

“Tell me something about yourself, something….I don’t know, anything.” Jaime looks up at her expectantly, a curious grin spreading on his face.

“I…what?”

“We’re friends, Brienne. No don’t roll your eyes. Whether you like it or not, we are. So, as we are officially new friends, I think it’s time we actually, you know, get to know each other or some shit like that.” Brienne’s eyes widen a bit in shock. She thinks he’s messing with her at first, but when her mind finally catches up, she looks down and finds him looking at her with a small sheepish smile, so she goes with it.

“Fine, what do you want to know?”

“I don’t know, anything.”

Brienne lets out a frustrated sigh and shakes her head at him. “That’s not how the game works, Jaime.”

Jaime crosses his arms over his chest and raises his chin a bit. “How would you know? It’s my game anyway. I get to decide on the rules, and I say tell me anything.”

Brienne sighs again, and this time it’s Jaime’s turn to roll his eyes. “Okay…” Brienne trails off and tries to think of something interesting, but other than potentially dying of cancer, Brienne finds herself to be an extremely boring person. She flips through her memory, trying to find something worth sharing in all the snapshots and little snippets, before she finally settles on something that sounds vaguely interesting, if not entirely ridiculous.

“Okay, here’s one, my favorite book is _As I Lay Dying_ by Faulkner.” Jaime’s mouth lifts into a small smile, though his eyes don’t seem to share the same sentiment.

“Now you’re getting the idea of the game, though I never would have pegged you for a Faulkner girl.” Brienne narrowed her eyes at him, but before she could accuse him of underestimating her, he held up his hands in defense and answered her unspoken question.

“I just thought you’d be more for structure and less of that stream of consciousness crap. You talked a lot about Hemingway in class, he just seemed more your style.” Jaime doesn’t really look at her when he mentions this last part, and Brienne thinks she sees his cheeks brighten just a little bit. Her face softens and she tries to articulate her affection for Faulkner without sounding morbid.

“Hemingway is great, but I guess…well Faulkner is just…it’s a beautiful text and…do I really have to explain the irony that the dying girl’s favorite book is _As I Lay Dying_?” Jaime does not look as amused by her little joke as she is. He just continues to stare at her, probably waiting for a real answer.

~~~

Jaime doesn’t even acknowledge her little joke. He hopes he can also ignore the little sting he felt too. He stays silent a little bit longer, waiting for the sting and churning in his stomach to subside. He change the subject before she has a chance to elaborate, or crack anymore jokes.

“Okay, something else.” He smiles at her again and hopes she doesn’t notice how uncomfortable and anxious he feels all of a sudden.

“I don’t think so, Jaime. It’s your turn.” Brienne looks down at him with her eyes narrowed, but a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth.

“What do you want to know? I’m an open book.” Jaime smirks back at her, this new banter they’re starting to fall into taking some of the sting away. Brienne thinks for a moment, and Jaime thinks that the freckles that cover the bridge of her nose are his favorites. He’s not sure when he started to have favorites among Brienne’s numerous freckles, but he does and waits until much later to question this new development.

“Why English?”

“Because it pissed my dad off.” Brienne rolls her eyes, and Jaime tells her that one of these days she’s going to roll those pretty blue eyes so far in the back of her head that they’ll get stuck. They are both silent when they realize he used the word pretty. She doesn’t let it go on for long though.

“There has to be a bigger reason. You couldn’t have based such a huge decision on what would piss your dad off the most.”

“Oh, but you didn’t see the color of red he turned when I told him. That part made everything worth it.” Brienne starts shaking her head before he’s even done speaking, and continues to do so until he heaves a sigh and concedes.

“Okay, so pissing of the great Tywin Lannister was only part of the reason- a very large and satisfying part. The truth…” Jaime finds it much easier to share this part without those bright blue eyes throwing him off, so he looks down at his hands and tell her….a majority of the truth.

“My mom died when I was a kid, and my dad just wasn’t…he’s not like your dad. After my mom died, it was just me, Cersei, and Tyrion.” Jaime pauses and tries to think of how to word the next part of his answer.

“Cersei could be… difficult at times, and Tyrion was just a baby so I guess that’s when it started, really. I just picked up a book and slipped away. It was easier to live in those worlds instead of my own, I guess.” When he finally does lift his eyes to Brienne, her eyes shave softened and he doesn’t feel the harsh criticism he had expected. He goes on, this time looking at Brienne instead of his hands.

“When it came time to choose a major, I guess I just figured English was what I sorta liked and it pissed my dad off so it was perfect. I didn’t really think too much beyond that though. Not too clear on the whole ‘after college’ thing yet.” He clears his throat a little bit before he goes on. “What about you? Why English?”

“I…don’t really know. Nothing profound or anything. I just really like to read and I just find more reason in books I suppose. Things make more sense in fiction than they do in real life.” 

“What about afterwards, any grand plans to write prize winning novels? Publishing maybe?” The words are out of his mouth before he can think them through. When she’s staring at him though, her eyes wide like she’s been caught in a lie. He’s actually pretty proud of himself for calling her out on something he’s not sure if anyone else has really caught, or had the nerve to mention before now. Brienne doesn’t plan on living past…well the next few months probably. And not just because of the caner, but because he’s pretty damn sure she’s just given up already.

He can tell all of this when she says she doesn’t have any plans yet and she’s just taking it one day at a time. Her voice is soft and apologetic, like she’s trying to let him down easy without really saying the word; dying, dead, death. She looks as if she’s trying to make this easier by softening her eyes, but he can still see the resignation in those bright blue eyes. The hopelessness makes him feel like he’s going to be sick.

Jaime leaves quickly after, probably leaving Brienne in a state of confusion. He makes it back to his apartment just in time to make it to the bathroom before he gets sick. He’s still sitting on the floor of his bathroom twenty minutes later, his hand keeping his hair away from his face and pressing hard into his temple to keep his headache at bay. He’s leaning against the vanity thinking about Brienne and how to keep that bleakness from her eyes when he hears her. He doesn’t know how she got in, but all of a sudden Cersei is leaning against the doorframe of his small bathroom.

“You’re not getting sick, are you, Jaime? I was hoping you could help me with something.”


	28. Chapter 28

For the first time since he and Cersei were kids, Jaime is not happy to see his sister. He wishes she would just go way and leave him to wallow in peace. His not exactly sure why he’s wallowing…actually that’s a lie. He really does know, he knows it because just now, as he had been cradling his head in his hands, Brienne had flashed through his mind. Brienne with her bright blue eyes and that smile that churned his insides and threw him slightly off-kilter. Brienne, who had just weeks ago only been Galladon’s little sister, but is now his friend. His friend who is dying. 

The word makes his blood run cold and he growls at Cersei to get out, to just leave him the fuck alone. She doesn’t. Cersei just continues to lean her shoulder against the doorway and stare down at him. She isn’t smiling anymore, so at least he’s managed that. 

“Jaime, what could possibly more important that you can’t even manage to get off your ass and fuck me when I ask you too?” Her voice is cold and all of a sudden he is standing in front of her, towering over Cersei with his hands tightly squeezing her shoulders. He usually wants to wake his time and savor every last bit of his sweet sister. Now, he has the urge to take her hard. Slam his rough lips against her own soft, delicate ones. He wants to leave bruises everywhere, like the ones that keep popping up on Brienne’s pale, yellow arms. He’s so angry that she could ever suggest having sex at a time like this, and it drives him to an anger that he never thought possible. 

The fear in her green eyes is the only thing that stops him. He loosens his grip on her shoulders and closes his eyes, He draws in a deep breath through his nose to calm himself. 

“Get out.” He doesn’t open his eyes, but he can feel her pry herself away from his grasp. She leaves with some biting remark about how he’ll be sorry or something to that affect. He doesn’t really listen, he’s already sliding back down and propping himself back up against the vanity in the bathroom. His mind is once again on Brienne, and he’s trying to understand why her. She’s smart, and funny, she’s….tough as nails, and she’s a good person. She’s so fucking good. 

Before he can stop it or even register it, a tear is falling from his green eyes, quickly followed by another, and then a few more. It should be him. What kind of world are they living in that Brienne is the one sitting in a hospital bed suffering, and he is the one who gets to go on walking around for fifty more years. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that whatever gods exist have fucked up. 

~~~ 

“Okay, brother, out with it.” Tyrion is currently sitting on the floor in his brother’s living room, propped up against the couch and working on his third beer. He had found Jaime an hour earlier, sitting on the bathroom floor and staring at the wall in front of him. Since then he had managed to drag Jaime out of the bathroom and onto the couch. He’s been trying to get Jaime to partake in the beer he had brought over, but all Jaime has managed to do so far is lay down and stare at the ceiling. 

Tyrion’s not even sure Jaime has even blinked since he found him, so the sound of his low, gruff voice is surprising. “Out with what?” 

“Is it Cersei again? Have you-” 

“It’s Brienne.” Tyrion smiles just the tiniest bit to himself as he looks down at the bottle he has propped in his lap. It would be funny if it weren’t so fucking…tragic. He knew it that night Jaime came to his apartment, looking for advice even though his mind was already made up. 

“What about Brienne?” Jaime looks down at him and Tyrion turns to look at his brother, and now Tyrion can see the dark bags under his brother’s eyes and the redness marring the corners where tears had slipped out. 

“Don’t play stupid, Tyrion. It doesn’t suit you.” Tyrion smiles at his brother, but Jaime’s eyes remain sad and distant. 

“You care for her.” Jaime’s face falls as Tyrion finally says the words out loud. He opens his mouth, but Tyrion knows there’s really nothing left for Jaime to say. Tyrion turns back around and stares at the black TV screen, idly picking at the label on his bottle as he searches for what to say. This is a first for Tyrion, not having words on the tip of his tongue. 

“It’ll probably only get worse form here.” 

“I know that.” Jaime’s voice is a hoarse whisper. Neither of them say anything for a long while, but Tyrion’s pretty sure he hears Jaime swiping furiously at tears running down his cheeks to his scruff. 

“Jaime?” Tyrion waits for the grunt of acknowledgment before he continues. “I’m sorry.” 

“Me too,” Jaime whispers before he turns slightly to face the back of the couch and probably fall asleep. Tyrion sighs and throws back the rest of his beer before opening another one. All the while trying to figure out if there’s a way to make this situation a little less heartbreaking. After another beer he still has nothing. By morning all he has is a nasty headache and crick in his neck from falling asleep with his head propped against the couch at a weird angle. 

~~~ 

The afternoon that both Doctor Martell and Doctor Sand come into her room is actually okay. She hasn’t been feeling as nauseous or tired lately. She was even able to keep down two whole pieces of toast at breakfast. Actually, Brienne’s been in a pretty good mood, reading a book while her father yells at some sports game on the TV. 

When she hears the knock at her door and both doctors come in she thinks she can feel her heart skip a beat with excitement. She’s been feeling a little bit better lately and she thinks they must be coming to tell her that it’s working. They’ve worked a miracle. Then she sees the watery smile on Doctor Sand’s face. 

“Hello Brienne, Selwyn.” Doctor Martell greets them. His voice is soft, like he thinks the softer and more comforting the voice is, the easier it will be to hear whatever he says next. It won’t. 

“How are toy feeling today, Brienne?’ Doctor Martell barely looks at her as he asks this, and as quickly as his eyes made contact with her, they shifted and he started to straighten some tubes. She cleared her throat, suddenly very dry and heavy. 

“Fine. Okay, I guess. I ate something today, so that’s something, right?” Doctor Sand and Doctor Martell both look at her smile, but they still both look sad and Brienne wishes they would just spit it the fuck out. Do they think they are hiding it? 

“That’s good.” Doctor Sand tries to stand a little higher from her spot behind Doctor Martell and smile even bigger. The exchange of pleasantries continues between the doctors and her dad, who muted the game as soon as the doctors stepped foot in the room. Brienne doesn’t really listen, she just hears the buzzing in her ears until she can’t take it anymore, this whole conversation that’s about nothing when really it’s about something. 

“It’s not working, is it?” She doesn’t think she’s spoken very loudly, but the way everybody goes silent and turns to stare at her with wide eyes makes her think she’s screamed the question at the top of her lungs. Doctor Sand is the one to answer her question, her smile finally fading. 

“Brienne, I think it’s time we start discussing other options.” Brienne can practically feel her father deflate and crumble in on himself. She wishes the roles were reversed. She wonders of that makes her a horrible person, to wish that her father were dying instead of her. 

“What other options?” Her father’s voice is shaky at best. 

“The Trazitopram has not been as affective in this case. Doctor Martell and I believe it may be in your best interest to start looking at…end of life care.” Her dad tries to interrupt, but Doctor Martell picks up where Doctor Sand couldn’t quite finish.” 

“I’m afraid that we have exhausted all other options at this point. We could look again at another allogeneic transplant, but because of the previous unsuccessful attempts and the progression of your cancer, Brienne, I’m afraid you wouldn’t be a very viable candidate.” Doctor Martell looks away from her as soon as he says this, like her own watery eyes have burnt him somehow. 

“How long?” She whispers as her dad start to protest. 

“Six months at the very best.” Doctor Sand doesn’t look away, just answers matter-of-factly, even though her lips twitch even father down when she speaks. Brienne tunes out the rest of the conversation. This is something she learned to do when she first became sick and she was surrounded by a group of adults deciding on to run her life, her treatments, her entire world. Usually she would take this time to give herself a pep-talk, tell herself that’s she would beat cancer’s ass. Now, she lies back against the pillows and wonders at the odd, liberating feeling that started to swell when Doctor Sand answered. Is it horrible to feel so free and light at the end of one’s life?


	29. Chapter 29

Galladon gets the call at around seven that evening. Actually, he picked up the phone at exactly 7:07 p.m. and he watched the clock on his nightstand click from 7:07 to 7:08 as his father told him exactly what the doctors had said. He remembers watching the numbers click to 7:10 as his father explained that Brienne would be going home two days later and that was it. Galladon vaguely remembers agreeing to be at home when she arrived, even though he was pretty certain Brienne still didn’t want anything to do with him. He knows he hung up at 7:14. It took his father exactly six minutes to tell him that his sister is…dying. He continued to stare at the clock for another fifteen minutes before he closed his eyes to shut out the tears and picked up his phone again. 

“We should get wasted,” is the first thing that came out of Galladon’s mouth when Jaime answered the phone. He didn’t even give his friend time to answer, just told him when and where to meet him and hung up. Fuck, he needed a drink, or ten. 

This is the thought that runs through his mind every time he takes a sip of the stinging bourbon that keeps popping up in front of him. Jaime had finally joined him about two drinks in, though Galladon’s not sure what took him so long. His hair is un-kept, and he looks like he hasn’t shaved in days. He’s definitely not dressed for the bar either. Jaime always looks like he’s dressed to go out; always ready to charm the pants off an unsuspecting sorority girl. 

Usually Galladon would raise an eyebrow and question his friend. Instead, he just continues to stare ahead of him at the different liquors decorating the many shelves behind the bar. Jaime is the one who finally breaks the silence by nudging Galladon shoulder with his own and asking him where he had disappeared to lately. 

“It’s over.” Galladon doesn’t even turn to look at Jaime. 

“What’s over?” Galladon takes another long sip of his bourbon, barely wincing at the burn. 

“Brienne. The chemo and dugs.” Galladon catches Jaime start to smile out the corner of his eye. 

“That’s great! We should be celebrating-“ 

“She’s not better, Jaime.” Galladon turns to face his friend finally and prepares to actually say the words out loud. “This is it, the end. She’s…she’s dying.” His voice cracks on the last word and he turns back to his drink, swallows what’s left, and immediately gestures for another refill. When he turns back around to say something else, Jaime is already gone, walking out of the bar. Galladon feels like maybe he should follow him, he and Brienne had become strangely close lately. His drink appears in front of him as he’s trying to decide and instead he starts in on his next drink and works on trying to forget…everything. 

~~~ 

The cold November air hits Jaime with a harsh blast as he walks outside the bar and leans against the hard brick wall. He rests his hands on his knees and stares at the dirty cement beneath him while he tries to get his breathing under control and keep the bile from rising in his throat. He can’t stop the tears though. They are coming fast and he feels unexplainably angry at his body’s reaction to the news. Of course he cares that his friend is dying, but he thinks he should be more concerned with how Galladon is handling the news. From what he witnessed in the bar, not well. As Galladon’s best friend he should be focused on helping Galladon, not out here with tears that won’t stop. 

Something inside of him feels like it’s breaking. When Galladon actually said the word, Jaime felt as though the wind had been knocked out of him and for a full three seconds he’s pretty sure he stopped breathing all together. When his chest started to burn and the world around him had drifted away he knew he had to get out of there as fast as possible. 

Now, he leans back against the brick wall behind him and tips his head back until he’s staring up at the dark night sky. He squeezes his eyes closed and wills the tears to go away, but all he can see with his eyes shut is Brienne rolling her own beautiful blue ones at him. The tears come faster then, and he slides down the wall until he’s sitting in the ground and presses his palms to his eyes to get them under control. 

~~~ 

Sansa refuses to go see Brienne. She is curled up in her bed in her dorm room. Nothing has changed since the morning they helped Brienne pack up her things and return home. Most people would jump at the chance to have a single room, able to push the beds together and take up residency in both closets. Sansa has left Brienne’s side of the room untouched, almost a shrine to her best friend. 

“This way, we won’t have to move everything around again when you get back.” Sansa had said when Brienne offered to help move the furniture around before she left. Brienne and Margery had only smiled and agreed with her. Now, Margery looks around at the furniture collecting dust, and she thinks that Sansa is much stronger than she gives her friend credit for because Margery is almost in tears and she’s only been in the room for two minutes. She wonders how Sansa is able to do this every day. 

Margery clears her throat loudly, effectively pushing down the burning lump in her throat, and alerting Sansa to her presence. “Go away, Marg.” Sansa’s voice is small and rough, most likely, Margery thinks, from crying herself to sleep. 

“You need to get up, Sansa.” Margery’s voice is soft, but it leaves no room for argument. Sansa argues anyway. 

“What for?” Sansa pops her head up slightly from the covers, and two bright shiny eyes stare back at Margery. 

“Because, we’re going to see Brienne.” Margery crosses her arms over her chest and stands a little bit straighter, hoping that Sansa can’t see that her own eyes are starting gloss over with unshed tears. 

Sansa shakes her head fervently. “No way. We can wait until-” 

“Until she’s dead?” Sansa’s eyes widen until they almost overtake her entire face. 

“Margery! That’s not what I meant.” Margery doesn’t soften her stance at Sansa’s awed voice. 

“Yes it is, or you would be getting ready to go spend time with our friend instead of sulking in your bedroom like a child.” At that Sansa finally throws the covers to the end of the bed and stands up with eyes that have renewed tears in them. 

“I am not sulking.” Her voice is soft at first, but as she continues it grows more solid and Margery can feel her heart start to break again. “I am angry.” Margery swallows several times, trying in vain to push down the burning sensation that has crept its way back up her throat. Sansa turns away from her and looks out the window as she continues in an even softer voice, “and I’m grieving.” 

“Sansa,” Margery gets out through the lump that refuses to budge. “You shouldn’t be angry…Brienne is just-” 

“Just giving up?” 

“Sweetie, she’s tired-” Sansa whirls around to face Margery again, this time with very angry eyes and wild movements. 

“Don’t do that! Don’t defend her! She could have tried something else! Another transplant! There can’t just be one trial drug out there in the entire world for leukemia!” 

Margery waits patiently for Sansa to exhaust herself, and by the end of her outburst, Sansa is sitting back down on the bed, her head in her hands and her shoulders shaking with fresh sobs. Margery sits back down on the bed beside her and wraps her arms around her, pulling her head down to her lap and rubbing soothing circles on her back. 

“Sansa, she’s so tired. You’ve been with her this past month, I know you’ve seen it too.” 

“The last time…the chemo always takes so much out of her…but she always beats it.” Sansa’s words are mumbled through tears and the mask of her hands, but Margery can still hear them, and she finally gives into the fiery lump in her throat and lest the tears spill. They blur her vision and she can feel her face contort as it still tries to fight back against the thick tears falling rapidly down her reddening cheeks. 

She wasn’t there the times previous to this, but she knows her best friend is a fighter, and as she and Sansa continue to cry in the half abandoned dorm room, Margery wonders what happens from here on out. Do she Sansa continue on with all the plans that included Brienne? Do they still take a year and travel to all the seven kingdoms after graduation? Do she and Sansa still get an apartment together? For so long, all of these plans have included the three of them, and that is how Margery has seen them in her head. Margery doesn’t even know how to fantasize about the future without their other best friend. 

Suddenly, she’s just as angry as Sansa. She’s so angry at the universe for taking her best friend from her before they’ve had a chance to do the things they dreamed of doing. The tears come thicker and faster until the entire room before is blurred out by her anger and her tears. 

~~~ 

Brienne is curled up in the window seat in her childhood bedroom. Her head rests against the cold window as she watches the clouds move in over the sea. The rain begins to beat against the window just seconds later and Brienne smiles to herself. She lifts up her hand and traces the line of one of the raindrops with the tip of her index finger. When they were younger, she Galladon would each pick a raindrop, and watch them race each other down the large windows that looked out over the cliff to the never-ending ocean beyond. 

Brienne traces a few more trails down the large picture window before she gives into the fatigue that has been consuming her all afternoon. She lets the relentless rain and distant rumbling of thunder finally lull her into dreams of a future that will never be. Some are trips she had planned with Margery and Sansa. A few others, however, have started to feature a much manlier figure with annoyingly green eyes and large, soft hands that engulf even her own rough hands. Soon, the dreams give way to her nightmares though, and she watches people mourning and then moving on and, worst of all, forgetting all about her. 

Brienne wakes up with tears in her eyes and something heavy and wet on her forehead. She wipes the tears away and brings her hand to her forehead to find a warm washcloth pressed to it. She lifts herself from the pile of pillows on her bed and leans against the headboard before she remembers that she had fallen asleep across the room on her bench beneath the window. Bienne closes her eyes and increases the pressure of the warm washcloth on her forehead as she spots Jaime Lannister rocking back and forth lightly in the wooden rocking chair in the corner of the room by her bed, his nose buried in a thick book and his brow furrowed.


	30. Chapter 30

“What are you reading?” Her voice is so soft and cracked, she’s sure he hasn’t even heard her. But eventually he looks up and the corner of his mouth lifts up into a smile.

“Well hello, sleepy head.” He turns down the corner of the page and then closes the book. He sets it down on her nightstand and sits down beside her, helping her to sit up a bit more and arrange the pillows behind her.

“What time is it?”

“Five thirtyish, I think. How are you feeling?” Jaime’s smile drops and is replaced with a frown and concerned eyes.

“Like I got run over by a bus…or like I’m dying” Brienne tries to laugh a little bit at her answer, but her mouth only manages a small smile. Jaime seems less amused than her, and she wants to tell him to lighten up because if she can’t joke about it she’ll cry. Brienne hates crying, in fact she’d rather die than be reduced to tears over this again. Funny how that’s worked out for her.

Jaime looks like he’s going to say something, so Brienne quickly takes the book from her nightstand and recognizes it immediately now that she’s actually looking at it and not Jaime Lannister in her childhood bedroom.

“ _As I Lay Dying_. You’re reading my book, Lannister.” Jaime looks down at his hands as they begin to fidget in his lap.

“Yeah…well…” Brienne waits for him to continue, but when he doesn’t she tells him how appropriate it is, all things considered. This comment finally gets him to look up at her again and fix her with a glare.

“So, what do you think so far?” Jaime’s hard eyes soften, and then his face scrunches up into confusion.

“I think you’re crazy. Even the second time around this book makes no sense.” Jaime throws his hands up in exasperation as he goes on about the stupid stream of consciousness and how in the seven hells can Addie Bundren be talking from the grave anyway?

Brienne lets a smile grace her lips as she watches Jaime go on a literary rant. She like him like this, she thinks to herself. All flabbergasted and sentences running over each other as he attempts to rail against Faulkner. The Jaime that’s been visiting her in the hospital and this one sitting beside her right now makes her wish that this is the Jaime she had always known. The one who doesn’t treat her like glass, but isn’t an ass either.

Then her stomach does something weird when he bites his lip in that way when he’s searching for the perfect word and then his hand brushes her arm and she feel like she’s being set on fire. Suddenly Brienne wishes she’d never met Jaime Lannister at all, or that he’d stayed just her brother’s asshole friend. Anything would be better than having a crush on the beautiful man staring at her right now with expectant green eyes.

Her eyes go wide as she continues to stare at him and his brow starts to quirk up in confusion, and then the other joins it in panic.

~~~

“Hey, are you okay? Do you need a bucket?” Brienne blinks a few times and Jaime’s panic starts to increase. He’s been reading up on acute myeloid leukemia. How it originates, various treatments for it, and all the different ways it makes it victims sick. He’s read anything he could get his hands on, but he has no idea what could possibly be causing this reaction. She doesn’t look sick, her eyes get a bit teary when she’s about to vomit, and her mouth hasn’t twisted into that tell-tale squiggle.

“Sorry, I’m….I’m hungry. I think I just need something to eat.” Jaime knows this isn’t the truth because she hasn’t had an appetite in weeks, and she looks too pale for that to have changed in the past few days. Also, just one quick look in the refrigerator earlier, filled with containers of leftovers, and he is pretty certain that Selwyn has been having to fight her to eat at every turn. 

He’s not going to push it though, not right now. He’d take it too far, and she’d likely stop eating altogether, just to be stubborn and prove some ridiculous point. Instead, he suggests they make their way to the kitchen and see what they can find.

~~~

“Could you say something, please?” Selwyn just continues to stare out the window behind his son. They are sitting in the kitchen, and he’s watching the lightning streak the darkening sky and then listening to the thunder boom just a few seconds after each streak. He’s trying to concentrate on counting the seconds between the lightning and the thunder and figuring out how far away the storm is. It’s oddly calming, especially compared to the rage that is currently bubbling in his blood.

“I don’t know what you would like me to say, Galladon.” Selwyn finally focuses his eyes on his son and some of the rage that has begun to boil underneath his skin he starts to turn on himself instead of his son. Being kicked out of one of the most prestigious law programs in the country is still pretty much all due to Galladon’s poor behavior and negligence. He is an adult, after all. Selwyn can’t help that nagging feel in the pit of his stomach, or the little voice in the back of his head that tells him if he’d been a better father, this probably wouldn’t have happened.

“You could yell. Yelling seems appropriate right now.” Galladon doesn’t look at him while he says this, in fact Selwyn in pretty sure his son hasn’t looked up from his lap since Galladon sat down across from him at the kitchen table and asked to talk with him. He isn't sure what he had been expecting when Galladon sat down, but it sure as hell wasn’t this. Galladon was always did well in school, at least Selwyn thought he did.

“I’m not going to yell, Galladon. Maybe I should, though I don’t know what good would come of it. Right now, though, I’m going to tell you that I’m disappointed.” Selwyn gets up and stares down at his son who is looking right back at him now. “And you can be better. I’m not the greatest father, but I do know that for sure.” Selwyn kneels down to his son’s level and pulls him into a tight hug. “Tomorrow,” he whispers around the lump in his throat. “Tomorrow, we’ll fix it.”

~~~

“Thanks for brining me home, man.” Galladon doesn’t look away from the screen he and Jaime are both currently staring at it. They have been sitting in silence for the last twenty minutes, which is oddly unsettling to both of them because usually there’s a string of curse words and obscenities streaming from both of them when they play Halo, or any video game really. Galladon flicks his eyes to Jaime quickly, but he doesn’t look away from the screen. He hears Jaime clear his throat, but doesn’t say anything, still focusing on the game in front of them.

“Yeah, well I couldn’t exactly leave you passed out in that shitty bar, and I didn’t think leaving you alone to choke on your own vomit in the apartment would be very good choice either.” Galladon’s cheeks flush at the bitter edge in Jaime’s voice, and he feels more than slightly embarrassed for his actions the previous night. He’s about to apologize, but Jaime goes on before he can even open his mouth.

“I just don’t get it, man.” Jaime throws his controller on the floor in front on him and turns to look at Galladon. He looks furious. Galladon has never seen his easy going friend so angry, especially not at him. The embarrassment he felt earlier grows, because Galladon is fairly certain this is about more than his actions in the bar last night. “I thought you said you were going to be better? What happened to that? This is your sister, Galladon. She’s…she’s…fuck if it were my sister I’d-”

“Yeah, we all know what you’d do if it were your sister, Jaime.” Galladon doesn’t even know why he’s saying while the words are spilling out of his mouth, but he does know that if Jaime wants to punch his lights out, he won’t blame him. Jaime doesn’t deck him, though. He stills completely, his face goes pale, and he looks like he’s going to be sick.

Jaime finally whispers “fuck you, Galladon,” then leaves the room. Galladon doesn’t follow him, because he’s not exactly sure where to go from this. He could apologize, he _should_ apologize. Part of him, the part that Galladon tries not to listen to but can’t help hearing in the back of his head, is telling him that his friend deserved it. If Jaime was going to sit there and yell at him for being a crumby brother, then fuck if Galladon couldn’t do the same.

It only takes Galladon a couple of minutes to decide to follow Jaime, an apology on the tip of his tongue. When he finally catches up with his friend though, he finds him on the back deck, standing at the railing, clenching and unclenching his fist. The promise of a good punch isn’t what stops him from opening the large French doors and following Jaime. It’s the sight of Brienne standing beside him and laying her head, covered in a light scarf to protect herself from the harsh winds coming off the sea and from the embarrassment of her bald scalp, lightly on Jaime’s shoulders.

Now Galladon gets it. He finally realizes why Jaime has been so furious with him. He also understands the sadness behind the fury in Jaime’s eyes when he started to lecture Galladon earlier. Galladon is pretty sure his best friend is falling for his little sister. What he’s not sure about is how he’s supposed to feel about this revelation.

Galladon turns away and walks back to his room, feeling like his wants to punch his Jaime as much as Jaime probably wants to punch him, and the other half feeling very sorry for him, because he knows how this is going to end for Jaime, and it isn’t with a happy ending.


	31. Chapter 31

Brienne somehow feels like she’s intruding when Jaime bursts through the large French doors and onto the large back deck. He runs a hand through his hair roughly a few times and then leans his knuckles on the railing and hangs his head. She briefly entertains the idea of silently heading back inside and retreating back to her room.

Instead she gets up from the large lounge chair she had been reclining in and finds herself standing next to Jaime. She doesn’t say anything. Just places her hand over his and looks over at him. He finally lifts his head and whispers “hey.”

“You should get a coat. You’ll freeze to death out here in the middle of November.” It’s the first thing that comes to mind, and there isn’t even a hint of humor or sarcasm as she says it. She can feel the blush rise immediately when the corners of his mouth turn up. Then he’s laughing. She usually hates it when Jaime laughs because it normally means he’s just said something extremely nasty and knows he’s gotten under her skin. This is a different laugh though. It’s a low chuckle and it warms her up a little bit just to hear it rumble through his chest and watch his shoulders shake.

Brienne smiles shyly in return, and then turns to look straight ahead. She waits a beat and then gently rests her head on his shoulder. She pulls her jacket closer when the breeze picks up and crosses her arms across her chest to keep the warmth from escaping. Her shivers continue and Jaime’s arm comes down to encircle her waist. He pulls her closer to his side and leans his head gently on top of hers.

“Looks like you’re the one who needs more layers. We should probably head inside.”

“Not yet, this is the best part.” She rolls her eyes at the eyebrow she can actually feel him quirking up and asking her to explain herself.

“The stars. They’re always brightest after a big storm. Plus, you haven’t told me why you stormed out here and ruined my peace and quiet.” Jaime clears his throat once, then twice and extracts himself from her.

“It was nothing, just crap with Galladon.” Brienne tries to laugh, but it ends up being a scoff. If anyone understands crap with Galladon, it’s her.

“I get it. He can be a real ass sometimes.” Brienne tries for a smile of understanding, but then she’s grabbing for the railing because that damn breeze is cold and making her a bit dizzy. She feels Jaime move by her side, but she’s righting herself before he can reach a hand out and help.

“It’s fine, just tired.” She turning and smiling at him, but he doesn’t smile in return. Instead he lets out a sigh.

“How about we go back inside. Maybe we can find some more of that cheesecake Margery brought over.” Brienne turns and takes one last look at the bright stars decorating the night sky. When she turns back to Jaime, he’s got one hand outstretched. She takes his offered hand and lets him lead her back inside.

~~~

Jaime is upturning everything in the spare bedroom he took over when he dragged Galladon back here. His looking for his car keys, hoping to get out of the house before Galladon can wake up.

“Here.” Galladon’s voice comes from the doorway and he hears a soft thump as his car keys land in the middle of the bed he has just finished tearing apart. Jaime mutters a thanks and grabs them without looking up at Galladon once. Jaime’s pretty sure he’d punch him if he did.

“You should tell her.” He feels his eyes narrow as he tries to push past Galladon. He’s not exactly sure what Galladon is talking about. He has his suspicions, but he’s barely acknowledged _that_ himself. There’s no way Galladon could know.

“What the fuck are you talking about?’ Jaime crosses his arms and finally looks at his friend. His eye are hard and he’s ready for whatever fight is about to ensue, and hopes there is one because he really wants to punch Galladon in the face right now. Or, he did. Now, looking at him, Jaime can see the dark circles under his eyes that make him look almost like a fucking raccoon. He’d laugh at Galladon if he wasn’t still so pissed at him for the night before.

“Seriously, you should just tell her,” Galladon continues before Jaime can say anything. His next question is pointless and stupid because he already knows what Galladon is talking about before he asks.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Galladon rolls his eyes and Jaime can physically feel his stomach twist in knots as his friend confirms what he hasn’t said, to himself, aloud, or to anybody.

“Dude, just tell Brienne that you…I don’t know, like love her or something.” Jaime’s eyes widen in surprise at the word. He knew that’s where Galladon was headed, but he hadn’t been quite so prepared to hear it. He cares for her, but does he really love Brienne? He definitely wanted to kiss her last night, but love? Hadn’t he been in love with Cersei just a few weeks ago?

“I don’t-”

“I’m not stupid, man. I can be an idiot, and I’m sorry about that comment about your sister. It wasn’t cool. But, I’m not stupid, or blind. I saw you two last night; on the deck.”

“We didn’t…we were just talking, man.” Jaime’s trying to find the words to tell him that he is definitely not into his sister, but as he’s trying to find the words to deny Galladon’s accusation he ends somewhere else entirely. “I don’t know if I love her, but I-I like her…a lot.” Jaime braces himself for a punch to the face as soon as the words leave his mouth.

“I’m not going to hit you. Actually, you should be the one punching me.” Jaime manages a small chuckle at that, even though his stomach is churning at the thought of actually telling Brienne what he’s just admitted out loud, to himself, and her brother.

“Yeah, well, it’s not like it wasn’t true.” Jaime sits down on the bed, suddenly feeling a bit defeated. “What would I even say to Brienne?” Galladon shrugs and then leans against the doorframe.

“I don’t know. Starting off with ‘hello’ might work.”

Jaime smiles sarcastically up at his friend who only grimaces in response. “Thanks, that’s really helpful.”

“Honestly, you know her better than I do.” Galladon lifts himself from the doorframe, but gives one last piece of advice before he goes. “Whatever you decide to do, though, I’d do it quick, before…” He trails off and his eyes droop down. Jaime feels like he’s been punched in the gut as Galladon’s words sink in. Before she dies.

“Fuck.”

~~~

It’s ironic now that Brienne is really, truly dying, she feels much better than she did when she was in the hospital. It still sucks to be dying. She gets pretty winded walking up and down stairs, and there are some foods that send her straight to the bathroom, but she is finally able to enjoy Sweet Potato Thursdays again.

“I can’t believe you got these here all the way from King’s Landing without eating them all on the way.” Brienne chuckles lightly as Loras scrunches his face up in mock hurt. Sansa laughs at his antics as well.

“She’s right Loras, you always eat way more than us.” Loras steals four more fries from the plate sitting in the middle of Brienne’s bed and shoves them into his mouth all at once, smirking as he chews. Margery snorts when he starts to choke a little bit and lunge for his large water bottle.

“Serves you right, little piggy.” Margery only glances up briefly form her magazine to smirk over at her older brother. Loras sticks his tongue out at her, and then goes straight back to stealing more fries. Brienne bats his hand away when he tries to steal the fry she is going for.

“Don’t wiggle so much, Brie. You’re gonna make me mess up and then I’m going to have to start all over again.” Sansa reprimands from her spot behind Brienne where she’s diligently French braiding Brienne’s wig. Brienne and Loras share an amused look and suddenly Brienne feels a sharp stabbing pain. Not like the one’s she usually feels because the cancer is slowly taking up her whole body. No, this one she feels in her heart when she realizes how much she’ll miss this, right here. Doing absolutely nothing with her best friends.

“Hey, you okay?’ Loras’s eyes are searching hers, making sure she hasn’t suddenly felt the urge to empty her stomach of all the fries she just consume. She smiles as at him, and reassures both Sansa and Margery, who have turned their attention to her, that she’s great.

“Or, I would be if someone had left me some fries.” She pouts, but Loras doesn’t even look ashamed at his little piggy status.

“Sorry, Brie. I keep telling you, you have to eat faster to keep up with a growing boy like me.” Sansa, Margery, And Brienne all snort in unison at his proud looking face and then they fall into a comfortable silence.

“Oooh, Brienne, your boyfriend is in _KL Weekly_!” Margery suddenly squeals. Brienne tries to whip her head to look at her best friend, but Sansa tugs on the braid she’s attempting to finish.

“Don’t move.” Brienne rolls her eyes, but apologizes.

“What are you talking about Margery?”

“I’m talking about your boyfriend, Jaime Lannister, being at the top of the _KL Weekly’s Hunky Hit List_.”

“Oooh, let me see!” Loras cries at the same time Brienne snorts so loudly, she’s slightly afraid the water she’s sipping might leak out of her nose.

“Jaime Lannister is NOT my boyfriend, Margery.” Brienne rolls her eyes again. “He’s a friend, that’s it.”

“Mhmm, sure, whatever you say, Brie.”

“Sansa! I’m serious guys, there’s nothing going on between me and Jaime.”

“Well if there’s nothing going on between you two, do you mind if I take a crack at him?” Loras had ripped the magazine from his sister’s hands, and doesn’t even tear his eyes away from the picture long enough to look at her.

“Don’t you have a boyfriend?” Loras shrugs.

“I’d share.” This time it is Margery who rolls her eyes. She quickly turns her attention back to Brienne.

“There has to be something going on, Brie. You two spend and awful lot of time together.” Margery smirks, and Brienne feels her cheeks heat up as a blush spreads across her face.

“Do you want there to be something?” Sansa inquires, and the blush starts to spread even more rapidly, from her cheeks all the way down her neck.

“I-I don’t know. Maybe?”

“Are you asking us or telling us?”

“Yes, okay, I may…a little bit, like Jaime. Can we change the subject now?” Brienne pleads with Margery, and she softens her eyes and takes the magazine back from her brother. Loras wines, but Margery ignores his protests and flips to the end of the magazine.

“Horoscope time!” Loras brightens up at his sister’s proclamation.

“Do me first!” Sansa shouts and claps her hands excitedly. Margery begins to read, and the topic isn’t brought up for the rest of the afternoon. Thankfully the group has to head back to King’s Landing before Margery can corner her and make her talk about her feelings for Jaime.

~~~

Galladon has been tearing his room apart for half the afternoon before he finally finds it. When he actually does find the novel buried at the back of his closet amongst a pile of other forgotten books, he opens it up and flips through the pages. He’s not looking for anything specific really, just some comfort. Or maybe a sign that it really is in his best interest to email the dean of the law school and beg for his spot back.

_To Kill a Mockingbird_ was the novel that started the whole idea to begin with. Like his sister, Galladon had a tendency to seek out fictional worlds to escape the crappy one that was their reality. He lands on the passage with Atticus’s closing argument, probably because the book has been held open to that passage so many times before that it has a well-worn bend in the spine that causes it to open naturally to the passage. Galladon thinks though, in the back of his mind as he reads through passage, that the book he spent so much time immersed in as a child just seems to know what he needs to read right now.

“You haven’t picked up that book in ages.” Brienne is leaning in his doorway.

“Hey, shouldn’t you be sleeping.” Brienne shrugs and continues on into the room, sitting down on his bed. Galladon leans against the mattress and continues to stare at the words in front of him. He could say he’s sorry, but there’s so much to be sorry for at this point and there isn’t enough time left for him to even begin to make up for all that’s happened between them.

“I’m sorry, Brienne.”

“I don’t know if that’s enough.” Galladon cranes his neck to look back at her, but she’s staring straight ahead, blinking rapidly, probably trying not to cry. “Maybe that’s the wrong thing to say,” she continues. “As someone who’s dying, most people expect me to have this newfound, positive outlook on life. Like no more grudges, and seize the day shit.” She looks down at him, no more tears in her eyes, but still sad. “I don’t though, I mostly just feel really angry and hurt. It sucks.”

“I’m sorry, Brie. Tell me how to fix it.” His voice is pleading, and he can hear it break at the end. Brienne folds her arms against herself, and shrugs her shoulders.

“I don’t think you can.” She leans back against the head board and closes her eyes before continuing. “I don’t want to be angry anymore, though. Let’s call a truce for now, okay?” She opens one eye and peeks down at him. Galladon swallows around the lump in his throat and nods at her. She nods back. “Read to me.” Brienne’s eyes are closed again, but his smiles and nods anyway. He flips the pages back and starts at the very beginning.

~~~

“You still haven’t talked to her yet?!” Tyrion’s eyes widen and Jaime resist the urge to roll his eyes at his little brother’s outburst.

“No, not yet.”

“Why the hell not?” Tyrion’s voice continues to rise and Jaime feels more cowardly than ever before. “What are you waiting for?”

“It’s only been a few days.” Tyrion rolls his eyes at him. “I don’t know, okay?” Jaime almost yells, even though it’s only the two of them, once again splitting a six pack in his living room.

“Just tell her you love her, or, I don’t know, ask her out or something. It’s not rocket science.” Tyrion says taking another long swig of his beer.

“What if she doesn’t feel the same?” Jaime stares at the ceiling as he admits this fear to his brother, not daring to glimpse the pity in his eyes.

“What if she does?” Tyrion’s voice is soft, but he can hear no trace of pity in it. Jaime turns to look at his brother. He is staring at him from his spot on the floor with Jaime’s cellphone in his outstretched hand. “I admit, I wasn’t really in favor of you hanging out with a sick girl who clearly needed her family more than some douche who used to make fun of her-”

“Do you have a point?”

“My point is this: Maybe I was wrong. Maybe what she really needed was you, because you sure as hell needed her.”

“What are you talking about, Tyrion?”

“When was the last time you thought about calling Cersei?” Jaime tosses Tyrion’s words around in his head, trying to recall the last time he has let Cersei consume his thoughts. Jaime groans when he realizes that his brother is right. He hates when Tyrion’s right, smug bastard. He rolls himself off the couch, slips his shoes on and heads for the door.

“Where the hell are you going?” Tyrion yells out. He grabs his car keys and shoves them into his pocket.

“To fucking Tarth. Clean up before you pass out.” He can practically hear Tyrion’s smug little smile when he calls out his good luck wishes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long :( Thank you all for sticking with me though! Love you all to pieces :)


	32. Chapter 32

“Why are we doing this again?” Brienne pops one eye open and peeks over at Margery who is sitting across from her, legs crossed and hands laid gently on her knees. Margery scowls and opens both of her eyes to look over at Brienne.

“Because, it’s supposed to help alieve the pain. And it only works if you’re quiet.” Margery closes her eye again and straightens her back. Brienne rolls her eyes, but then closes them and tries to humor her friend. Brienne only lasts a few more seconds before another question pops out of her mouth.

“What exactly am I supposed to be focusing on?” Brienne hears Margery groan, and she smiles a bit at her frustration. Serves her right for cutting into Brienne’s reading time with this weird meditation stuff. “Faith, trust, and a little bit of pixie dust?” Brienne can’t even keep a straight face as she says it, breaking out into giggles and doubling over by the end. Margery just crosses her arms and glares at her.

“Are you finished?” Brienne straightens back up and clears her throat a bit to signify her renewed dedication to the meditation exercise. Margery doesn’t continue though. “We don’t have to do this.” Her glare softens. “I just thought it might help.” Brienne’s voice is quiet and sympathetic when he answers Margery. “I know, Marg.” Her voice brightens and she smiles as she continues, “I’m fine, though. I’m tired, but it doesn’t hurt. Not yet.” Margery smiles back at her.

“Really? Because, no offense, but you look like shit.” She smirks, but Brienne recovers quickly.

“Bitch.” Brienne whips a pillow at her friend and it hits her square in the face. Margery feigns surprise, but she quickly dissolves into contagious laughter that has Brienne laughing soon too. Before long they are both sprawled out on the plush carpet of Brienne’s living room floor, breathless and tears leaking from the corners of their eyes.

Margery turns on her side and props herself up on her elbow, looking down at Brienne. “Are you really okay?” Brienne chews on her bottom lip, trying to come up with an answer. Finally, she shrugs her shoulders and looks over at Margery.

“I don’t know, Marg.” Brienne pauses, and then asks “are you okay?” Margery’s eyes start to shine, and Brienne catches the slight quiver in her chin before she tries to smile. “It’s okay if you’re not, you know,” she continues before Margery can plaster a fake smile on her face and nod her head. She watches as Margery starts to crumble in on herself and Brienne leans over to catch her and let he cry on her shoulder. Margery’s tears are just as contagious as her earlier laughter.

~~~

“Come on, Brie, you have to!” Brienne shakes her head at Sansa and Margery’s antics, but can’t help smiling.

“I’m too tired.” She’s actually feeling….not horrible today, and she could easily join in with the two girls dancing around her room and caterwauling at the top of their lungs. Sansa’s smile widens then and her eyes sparkle a little bit as she picks up the ipod and starts to flip through more songs.

“I know just the song.” She chuckles as the song starts to play and Brienne glares at her. “You know you want to.” Sansa almost sings the words. Brienne rolls her eyes but starts to sing anyway.

“Someday somebody’s gonna make you wanna turn around and say goodbye! Until then baby, are you gonna let ‘em hold ya down and make ya cry? Don’t ya know, don’t ya know, things’ll change, things will go your way if you hold on for one more day! Hold on for one more day, things’ll go your way!” Before she can help herself, Brienne is up and dancing around with them and singing to Wilson Phillips at the top of her lungs with the other two.

By the time they are finished with the song, Brienne is breathless and smiling. She collapses onto her bed and is able to suck in a few gulps of air before Margery grabs her hands, drags her to her feet, and begins to sing along to _Barbie Girl_. She and Sansa roll their eyes in unison this time, but they join in and twirl around the room. Brienne sits a few songs out, catching her breath and watching from her bed. She joins in on the last song though when Sansa puts on Whitney Houston and cranks the volume up.

“I wanna dance with somebody! I wanna feel the heat with somebody! Yeah I wanna dance with somebody, with somebody who loves me!” Brienne and Sansa are singing into imaginary microphones and she’s dancing back to back with Margery. It’s the most fun she’s had in months. She wonders if they’ll do this without her, these little impromptu dance parties. She hopes so, obviously, because who wishes for their friends to be miserable and grieve forever? A little part of her hopes it will forever be _their_ thing. In fact, if she could exist in one moment for the rest of time, she would chose this one. In this moment she’s invincible and alive.

By the time the song has ended, they are all breathless and laughing wildly. They collapse into a heap on Brienne’s large bed and try to catch their breaths. Brienne stares up at the ceiling for a bit, and when she has found her voice again she says, “I gonna miss you both.” She doesn’t look at either of them as she says this, but she can feel both of them turn to look at her. Thankfully, before either of them can respond, someone is knocking harshly on her door. Brienne yells at whoever it is to come in and then Galladon is in her doorway.

“There’s someone at the front door for you, Brie.” She scrunches her brow in confusion and looks over at Sansa, who merely shrugs and turns to look at Margery. She tolls her eyes at the two of them.

“Who is it?” Brienne asks and then looks over at her brother, but Galladon has already left. Brienne mutters something about useless brothers and then heaves herself off the bed and down the stairs. She is a little breathless and lightheaded when she reaches the bottom, but the sight of Jaime Lannister hanging out in her living room causes her stomach to drop and makes her feel like she just might pass out. When he turns and smiles at her she thinks her knees just might buckle. _Fuck you, Lannister_! She thinks just before she smiles back at him.

~~~

“I don’t think this is a good idea.” Sansa whispers loudly from her spot behind Margery. Margery shushes her and then tells her what she can see from her own spot, twisting at an odd angle to stay mostly hidden behind the wall, but still look out through the bars of the wooden banister and down into the living room below.

“I only want to listen for a second.”

“Margery.” She can hear the warning in Sansa’s voice. She takes a page from Brienne’s book an rolls her eyes at her friend. She twists herself back around and leans against the wall beside Sansa, giving up on her attempt at eavesdropping.

“When do you think it’s going to happen?” She turns to look at Sansa, her eyebrows scrunched together in a silent question. “You know…. _it_.” Sansa continues, and finally she understands. Margery tunes back and crosses her arms across her chest, trying to guard herself from idea, like if she can keep the thoughts of… _it_ out then _it_ won’t actually happen.

“I don’t know, San.” She’s silent for a minute, listening to the voices in the living room below. She turns to looks at her friend and says “but if she doesn’t get to fuck Jaime Lannister before though, it’ll be a damn shame.” Sansa’s jaw drops open, her eyes grow into larger round circles, and Margery has to smack a hand over her mouth to keep her uncontrollable laughter from being heard by Jaime and Brienne.

When Sansa is able to recover slightly she shakes her head a bit and asks “do you really think she’d sleep with Jaime Lannister?” Margery quirks an eyebrow up and smirks.

“He’s gorgeous and super into her, she should totally sleep with him.” Sansa scowls at this.

“Just because he’s into her doesn’t mean she’s into him, Marg.” Her smirk only grows larger.

“Oh, she is totally into him.”

~~~

Jaime didn’t think he’d be this nervous, but now that he’s here, with Brienne standing right in front of him, he’s wishing he would have thought this through a little bit more. He should have grabbed some flowers, ore prepared like a fucking speech about how unworthy he is and how completely honored and humbled he’d be if she would deign to go out with him.

Instead he stumbles through hello and starts to trip over his words. Finally she takes pity in him and asks if she can get him a glass of water or something. He nods and takes her absence as an opportunity to get his fucking act together. By the time she returns he’s talked himself into asking her out. It’s not what he came here to say, but it’s something. She looks at him with those big clear eyes, the ones that look exactly like the sea outside, and suddenly his mouth is on hers and there are alarm bells going off in his head.

This is not how this was supposed to go. He was just supposed to ask her out. He’s committed to it now though, so he follows through and after a few agonizingly slow seconds, she’s kissing him back gently. She’s not a practiced kisser, but the way his stomach flips and flops like he’s on a roller coaster makes him put this at the top of his list of favorite kisses ever. She gently pushes him away almost as soon as it’s begun. She’s panting pretty hard when they break apart.

“Sorry, I just- I’ve wanted to do that for a while.” He smiles sheepishly back at her and shrugs his shoulders.

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.” She doesn’t say anything, just continues to stare at him. He can feel heat rising in his cheeks and he thinks now would probably good idea to abandon this whole ridiculous plan. “Listen, I’m sorry for…all of that. I think I’m gonna go-”

“No!” She practically shouts, and then he cheek are turning just as red as his feel, and she slaps a hand over her mouth. He chuckles when her eyes go wide. She clears her throat and continues. “I mean, uh, you don’t have to go. It was nice. The kiss, I mean.” She doesn’t look at him when she says this, her eyes darting around the room, looking for anything else to lock onto besides him. She gives up in the end and she looks uncertain when her eyes finally land back on his. He smiles at her.

“Really?” She nods and smiles back. “So you wouldn’t mind if we did it again?” He smirks as her eyes go big again.

“Right now?” She squeaks.

“Now would be great, but I was thinking also tonight, after dinner?” He tries to brighten his smile and hopes it’s enough to cover the fact that he’s still terrified she’ll say no. She nods again.

“Yeah, dinner sounds good.” He kinda feels like he’s floating when she smiles back at him and her eyes sparkle.

“Great. Now, about that kiss…” He grabs her by the hips and drags her flush against him. It’s a soft kiss, and she’s a quick learner. When her arms wind themselves around his neck he knows this is it. He’s fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to give a big thank you to everyone who has stuck with this story even though I'm awful at updating. Ya'll are so great and wonderful and your continued support and wonderful comments are what drive me :) I appreciate and adore all of you!


	33. Chapter 33

Selwyn doesn’t like it. He’d never say anything to Brienne though, because denying your dying daughter her first date with a guy she (unfortunately) really likes would definitely win him worst father of the year award. So he opens the door for Jaime, who he actually didn’t hate until he caught the boy making out with his daughter in his living room. He’d had to loudly clear his throat three times to get them to separate.  
“Brienne, Jaime is here.” Selwyn calls up the stairs. He tens back to face Jaime, who is wringing his hands and darting his eyes around the room, never looking at Selwyn. “So, where are you taking my daughter this evening?”

  
“Uh, I was thinking dinner, and maybe a movie?” Jamie’s voice slides up a bit in a question, as if asking for permission. Selwyn raises one eyebrow, not sure if he’s surprised or amused. Jaime picks up on the silent question and continues. “Well, I just though, uh, maybe she’d be tired. So I guess I don’t really have a plan?” As Jaime rambles Selwyn feels his shoulders relax and he eventually gives the boy a small, sad (always sad) smile.

  
“I think a movie is a fine idea, just not too late.” Jaime finally looks at him and nods his head. Brienne appears behind Jaime and they are saved any further small talk. When he looks at her though, he doesn’t see the young woman she has become. Standing on those steps he sees a little girl with pig tails and a large teddy bear hanging by her side. When she smiles with tightly closed lips, he sees a large grin with a front tooth missing. He tells her she looks beautiful and then excuses himself.

  
He closes the door to his study quietly, and when he hears the front door close he opens the bottom drawer and pulls out the bottle of whiskey stashed there. He drinks in celebration, because seeing his daughter go on a date and greeting the boy at the door and instilling a little fear in him is something he’s always wanted to do. It’s normal and Selwyn loves that. He loves that for just a little while, his daughter gets to be a normal young woman and he gets to be a normal dad.

  
His next drink is not in celebration. His next drink is because he feels the sorrow and fear cracking his heart and there’s nothing else he can do. The pain is ever present, but he can’t cry anymore. Instead he drinks. A lot.

  
~~~

  
The date is nothing like she imagined. She thought it would be awkward, or that she wouldn’t have anything to say. It goes surprisingly well though. They talk about a lot of things. They debate movies and literature. They joke and laugh, and it’s fun. Brienne even forgets for like a whole hour that she’s sick. She’s just having fun with a man who has quickly become one of her best friends.  
She remembers her sickness when she gets up a little too quickly from her chair to leave the restaurant and she gets very dizzy. She has to lean on Jaime’s shoulder for almost a whole minute and close her eyes in order to reorient herself. She smiles at him when he asks if she’s okay and looks at her in concern.

  
“I’m fine, just got up a little too fast.” She hears someone else ask if she’s okay, and Jaime looks behind her to assure the person that everything is fine. She turns to see a concerned waiter holding a tray full of food behind her. She looks around and notices that others are also staring at them. She’s not sure what they’re thinking, but suddenly her cheeks are heating up and her throat is burning. She brushes past Jaime and walks as fast as she can out of the restaurant. He catches up quickly and ties to take her hand, but she crosses her hands over her chest and bows her head, trying to make herself invisible.

  
“Brienne, would you stop a second?” Jaime grabs her elbow and tugs slightly. She stops but refuses to look back at him. She stares straight ahead, arms still crossed, and her lips pulled tightly into a frown. She’s a joke and she doesn’t need to look back at him to find her confirmation in his eyes. She knows he must be feeling the same, this was an experiment gone wrong.

  
“Hey, would you look at me please?” Jaime pleads and tugs on her elbow again. She closes her eyes tightly, counts to three, and turns around. She tries to smile, but think maybe it comes out as more of a grimace. “Are you okay?”

  
“It’s nothing, I just got a little dizzy. You know, a mixture of pain medications can have some-”

  
“You know what I mean, Brienne.” Jaime looks like he wants to continue, or maybe he’s hoping she’ll fill him in on the reason for her dramatic exit. Brienne just continues to look at him, searching for…a reason to leave or a reason to stay. She doesn’t find any signs, answers, miraculous revelations, or even pity. She just sees a shivering, concerned, and maybe even a little irritated man. She wants to go home and pretend this night never happened.

  
~~~

  
“Can you take me home now? I’m tired.” Jaime’s eyes widen and he knows he’s not doing a very good job of hiding his disappointment and annoyance at her for running out on him

  
“Why don’t we go for a walk? Or a drive, if you’re tired? We could-”

  
“Jaime.” Brienne interrupts softly but harshly. He looks at her and his irritation dissipates. He can see the fatigue in her slightly sagging shoulders and the circles under her eyes have deepened. She looks sick. She looked sick before, but she’d also always looked courageous. Like she couldn’t be beaten? Or was that just his imagination? The picture he’d had of her because he couldn’t actually envision her…dying?  
Now he really looks at her, she has closed her eyes and is leaning against the trunk of his car. Her arms are crossed and he can hear the deep breaths she’s taking, most likely to steady her nerves. She is not beautiful; not like Cersei or other girls. He loves looking at her though. Her eyes used to glow with…courage or hope or something that had settled something inside of him. When she opens her eyes, and looks at him there isn’t a glow anymore. His stomach twists and sours because he becomes terrified that glow is gone forever now and that means she will be too.

  
He grabs her then and pulls her to him. He wraps his arms around her waist and kisses her softly. She’s surprised and even tries to protest and push him away. He just tightens his hold on her and then she parts her lips for him. He wants to put that glow back in her eyes. He thinks that if he can just get her to feel that courage and strength again, and she won’t leave him.

  
~~~

  
They make out in Jaime’s car for…well she’s not sure how long it is, but its long enough to make her forget about the incident in the restaurant. It’s also long enough to make her start to think that her father might be getting a little worried about her. She pushes him away from her lightly. He groans, but she silences him with his name.

  
“I really do need to go home now.” He groans again and buries his head against her shoulder. He kisses her neck softly and then she feels him nod his head.  
They drive in silence for the twenty minutes it takes Jaime to drive her home. When he parks the car in her driveway she leans over to peck him on the cheek he catches her hand in his own and leans away from her.

  
“What happened tonight?” She closes her eyes and sighs. She can still feel the stares of pity and morbid curiosity from the other people in the restaurant. He skin starts to crawl and her cheeks heat at the remembered embarrassment.

“Come on.” he pulls on her hand gently. “It’s just me, you can tell me.” She looks at him and wonders if that’s true. Can she tell him everything and have him understand it all? There’s so much that comes with cancer and dying that she hardly expects others to honestly understand what it really feels like.

  
Her friends and family, they try to understand. She knows they do everything they can to bury their own feelings and help her and listen. But she can never make any of them feel the embarrassment she felt tonight and every other time she goes into public, when others stop to stare at her with pity. She can also never explain the utter happiness and joy she felt tonight with Jaime. She can never explain the sadness she feels in the moment, looking at him and wishing for a thousand more nights like this, but knowing she will never get them. She wants to accept her fate with grace and strength, but as she continues to look at him, neither of them speaking, she thinks of the unfairness of it all, of him. The anger starts to take over again and replaces the peace she thought she had made with the hand life has dealt her.  
The anger makes her feel bold and this time she kisses him. He doesn’t resist, but she can feel his reluctance. He grabs her shoulders and pulls himself from her, gasping for breath.

  
“As much as I like this new boldness, and trust me I REALLY do, are you sure you’re okay?” Brienne lights her face with a bright smile, the best one she has, and nods her head.

  
“I’m much better now, just a little tired.” Jaime smiles then and pulls her back to him.

  
“Maybe you should go inside and go to bed?” He whispers it against her lips.

She gathers her courage and says very quietly “Maybe you should come with me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Note: So yeah, I just couldn’t get it out of my head because for some reason I’m a sadistic person who wants to see how someone so strong handles deterioration… Jaime and Brienne though! That’s a plus, right?!


End file.
